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A view from the Blu (-ray) on DVDBeaver by Leonard Norwitz

 

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Surf's Up BRD

(Ash Brannon & Chris Buck - 2007)

 

 

 

 

Studio: Sony Pictures Animation (USA) & Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (USA)

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Feature film: 1080p

119 minutes

Supplements: SD

1 disc

 

Audio:

English: PCM 5.1 (Uncompressed)

English Dolby True HD 5.1

French: DD 5.1

Spanish: DD 5.1

 

Subtitles:

English, English SDH, French and Spanish

 

Extras

• Filmmaker's Commentary

• Visual Effects Commentary

• Surf's Up Pinball game (optimized for PS3)

The Chubbchubbs  (2002 short film)

The Chubbchubbs Save Xmas (2007 short film)

Lose Myself music video by Lauren Hill

Meet the Penguins

All Together Now: The Surf's Up Voice Sessions

Not a Drop of Real Water (Making-of)

• Lost Scenes

• Photo Galleries

 

16 chapters

Standard Blu-ray case

Release Date: October 9, 2007

 

 

Surf's Up ~ Comment

What's this: Another penguin movie!  Well, sort of.  But after the first few minutes I doubt if you'll find much in common with Happy Feet and certainly not with March of the Penguins.  I wonder if the world will divide itself into the tappers, the surfers and the naturalists.  For me, Surf's Up was, by far, the most fun.  And, for its being an animated feature, also the more interesting technically.  Even so, there are unexpected problems with this DVD as you shall see.

 

Surf's Up may hold the record for fastest transfer to DVD from a major studio:  From theatrical release on June 8, 2007 to DVD on October 9.  That's just under 18 weeks!   In addition to DVD and Blu-ray, Surf's Up  is also being released on "High-Def" and "PSP" (Play Station Portable) on the same date.

 

 

 

The trend with animated features these days is to try to find a way to appeal to kids and adults.  Each studio has their bias.  As for adult audiences, Pixar (The Incredibles) goes for image texture and contemporary and cultural references.  Dreamworks (Shrek) panders with scatological references and faux-feminism.  Blue Sky (Ice Age ) goes for more or less a middle ground and keeps their fingers crossed.  Filmmakers Ash Brannon & Chris Buck have come onto an idea that ought to appeal to both species nicely by combining talking birds, surfing, and "reality TV."  If you thought tap dancing penguins was a stretch, how about surfing penguins?  Come on, now, you have to chuckle at its sheer outrageousness.  Not satisfied, BuckBrannon have plowed the entire narrative into a docudrama reminiscent of The is Spinal Tap.  Presumably every shot is from the point of view of the camera crew. 

 

 

Surf's Up ~ The Score Card

 

The Movie : 8

The documentary crew follows surfing challenger and newcomer, Cody Maverick, to the Penguin World Surfing Championship where he takes on undefeated Tank Evans.  It's positively amazing where that camera can go.  Sometimes it's at the head of the surfboard for a crucial reverse angle shot.  Other times they follow Cody through the jungle.  (What jungle!)  We see home movie footage of his growing up in Shiverpool, Antarctica, where surfing is not all that big until "Big Z" arrives and shows his stuff.  Our hero-worshipping, fledgling surfer, Cody, has big dreams but not much opportunity until Chicken Joe comes to town with an invitation to the Championship.  Cody gets on board, not exactly directly, and soon finds himself in the sunny, tropical climes of Pen Gu island, where he gets royally tanked on his first trial.  Cody gets support, advice and admonishments from your usual assortment of sidekicks and antagonists; but along the way, there's some pretty interesting stuff I learned about surfing – not least is that the sport was in fact developed by penguins and not, as some would have it, by Jeff Spicoli and Lt. Col. Kilgore.

 

Image : 7 (7/9?)

The score of 7 indicates a relative level of excellence compared to other Blu-ray DVDs.  The score in parentheses represents: first, a value for the image in absolute terms; and, second, how that image compares to what I believe is the current best we can expect in the theatre.

 

 

 

In an effort to create a sense of motion that might otherwise be non-native to animation (which is, no matter how it's produced, fundamentally a stop-motion art form), the animators have developed a mechanism to integrate the sense of motion with every frame. So here's the problem: Inadvertently - I assume – they forgot to turn it off when things aren't moving, like in chatty close-ups, for instance.  I don't really know if that's what happened, but the effect is there, regardless.  The entire image is softened – always.  In fact, if you pause the picture, you will see this lack of sharpness in all its glory.  Such are the perils of high definition video.  At first I thought perhaps the focus on my projector went out of adjustment.  Nope.  Then I guessed there was something amiss with the transfer.  Well, if that's the case, then the Chubbchubb shorts make image mincemeat of the feature film.  So, I'm left with the idea that the animators either forgot to turn off the motion maker or deliberately left it on so there would not be a huge discrepancy between one part of the movie and another.

 

All my carping about sharpness will likely not be observed if you have a display of less than 60 inches – but what you will notice, whatever the size, is that the faux-archival footage of Cody's early days (I hesitate to say "childhood") is laced with deliberate film scratches, grain and even some B&W footage.  Cute, but  tiresome, I thought.  Eventually things settle down to a colorful image with lots of contrast and great color – that is, when the sun is out.  When it's not, be prepared for the world's greyest, flattest image.  Too much reality can be a liability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio & Music : 8/7

Both are dynamic and engaging.  I shall say no more.  Voicing by all concerned was right on target, as is often the case with animated features.  I liked that there was no attempt to make the penguins or other creatures in the image of the actor. I shall say no more.  I said that already.  (Too much reality!)

 

 

 

Operations : 5

In addition to the long load times when this amount of Java is brewed, I found the menu wheel exasperating as well as downright ugly.  One travel advisory: Beware of the "Surf's Up Pinball Game."  When the menu indicates that it is optimized for PlayStation3, they mean it.  On my Sony S300, flashing white frames danced across the screen making playing the game not much fun at all.

 

Extras : 6

The titles are reasonably self-explanatory.

• Filmmaker's Commentary

• Visual Effects Commentary

• Surf's Up Pinball game (optimized for PS3)

The Chubbchubbs  (2002 short film)

The Chubbchubbs Save Xmas (2007 short film)

Lose Myself music video by Lauren Hill

Meet the Penguins

All Together Now: The Surf's Up Voice Sessions

Not a Drop of Real Water (Making-of)

• Lost Scenes

• Photo Galleries

 

 

 

Recommendation: 7

Loved the movie.  Image quality was very iffy.

Leonard Norwitz
LensViews
September 30th, 2007

 

 

 

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