The animated Surf’s Up is a poor man’s Happy Feet. It’s amusing and has a dash of creativity, but it’s nowhere near as humorous, original and surprising as Happy Feet was last year.

The filmmakers invite comparison to Happy Feet by making a film about a penguin who feels outcast in his society because of a special gift. Here, instead of tap dancing, our protagonist Cody Maverick (Shia LeBeouf, Disturbia) can surf.

The story is fairly standard fare, the only thing making the story original is its presentation: mockumentary – ala The Office and This is Spinal Tap – complete with interviews with different characters, shaky handheld camera shots and interview questions coming from behind the camera.

Maverick manages to make his way to a big surf competition, only to initially embarrass himself. Maverick is eventually trained by the reluctant mentor Big Z (Jeff Bridges, Stick It ) to eventually re-enter the competition. Along the way, Maverick encounters a laid-back buddy chicken named Joe (Jon Heder, Blades of Glory), a love interest lifeguard named Lani (Zooey Deschanel, Bridge to Terabithia) and a competing surfer named Tank (Diedrich Bader, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous). James Woods (Shark) also shows up as a shady surf promoter named Reggie, some sort of badger-like creature. One wonders why he wasn’t made into a weasel, which would represent the ultimate literal expression of James Woods’ typecasting.

The two co-directors, Ash Brannon (Toy Story 2) and Chris Buck (Tarzan) have notable experience in animation but are relatively low on directing experience. Their main innovation (and indeed the main innovation of the entire film) is to shoot the film like a documentary; and they commit to it, sprinkling in a lot of handheld shots and pans and zooms that look like documentary-style improvisational filming. And while the film gets a good amount of comic mileage out of its documentary format early on, it can’t remain consistently funny, even at an ultra-short 85 minutes.

While the voice talent is notable for how eclectic it is, most do simply passable work with their simple roles. LeBeouf has a knack for giving his dialogue an air of realism, which is good since his role doesn’t allow him to do anything other than state fairly plain lines. Other notables include the well-cast Heder, laying on the lazy drawl as the mellow chicken Joe and Woods as the fast-talking weasel-like badger Reggie. But the funniest parts of the movie come from the trio of adorable penguin children, in particular one by the name of Arnold (Reed Buck) who is perpetually trying to drown himself in order to gain the attention of the lifeguard Lani.

Surf’s Up is by no means a bad movie; it’s just a fairly average one. The animation is visually appealing and the water in particular looks very lifelike, but as a whole it isn’t on the level of Pixar’s animated classics.

Not as funny as this spring’s Shrek the Third and not as original as Happy Feet, Surf’s Up is an amiable movie and a mildly amusing time at the theater.

Contact reporter Dan Benamor at

diversions@dbk.umd.edu.