The 313 Second Movie Review: "Surf's Up"

And the hits just keep on coming. Welcome back to another edition of the 313 Second Movie Review. This time, "Surf's Up" is the movie I'll be looking at. The film stars Shia LaBeouf as Cody Maverick, Zooey Deschanel as Lani Aliikai, Jeff Bridges as Big Z/Geek, James Woods as Reggie Belafonte, and Jon Heder as Chicken Joe. The best way to describe this movie as a CGI cross between the surfing documentary "Riding with Giants," which like this movie uses vintage newsreels and shaky camera work, with the storyline of "The Karate Kid." WITH PENGUINS! (OK, so I know many of you are sick of penguins right now, but one the bright side, they'll be working with Jessica Alba in "Good Luck Chuck.") So we start out by meeting the hero of the story, Cody Maverick, a cocky, ambitious, surfing penguin from Shiverpool, Antarctica (comedic rimshot). An outcast among the other rockhopper penguins in Shiverpool, Cody is obsessed with the late surfer, Big Z. The young penguin finally gets to live his dream as he hopes on to the whale destined for Pen Gu Island, Hawaii (who the hell comes up with these bad names), the site of the big annual surfing competition. Cody quickly befriends Chicken Joe (guess which animal he is), the equivalent to the stoner in real surfing documentaries. Too bad Cody's way out of his league. After confronting the nine-time defending champion Tank Evans, the snake-like promoter of the event, Reggie Belafonte, a sea otter who shares Don King's lack of business ethics and (apparently) hairstylist, pits the two penguins against one another. Lani, a lovely female lifeguard who is the twinkle in Cody's eye, comes into save our hero after he gets his tailfeathers kicked badly. Lani takes Cody to meet Geek, a recluse penguin who knows a thing or two about surfing. Almost instanly, I realized Geek was somebody else. Took Cody long enough to notice Geek was actually an alive and well Big Z. A cross between The Dude from "The Big Lebowski" and Mr. Miyagi from "The Karate Kid," Z assists Cody in building up his skills for the competition. Now, it's certainly a kid's movie, but you know what? I don't care. The adult humor mixed in with the kiddie jokes made for a laugh-a-minute rib breaking. You should have seen my sister when she saw this. A broad smile crossed her face every time Chicken Joe graced the screen. Now, it does have it's predictable points, but it still makes up for those in the jokes that an older audience will appreciate (and maybe jokes targeted for kids, if you happen to be a kid heart). All I must say is, keep giving us penguin movies! Oh, right, Jessica Alba.

My time's up, you've been great. For the road: Beyonce "Beautiful Liar"