Surf's Up clips online
ten clips show scenes form Sony Pictures Animation movie
(Source: movies.yahoo.com)
Sony Pictures Animation looks like it's going to have a rough summer of 2007. Between DreamWorks' record-shattering Shrek the Third, Pixar's highly-anticipated Ratatouille and Fox's long-overdue The Simpsons Movie, there's not a lot of space for other CGI animated flicks to strut their stuff this summer. Which is why Sony's Surf's Up is trying its level best not to get caught in the cracks. Does this mean they're making a better movie than the competition? That remains to be seen.
However, it does mean that they're posting clips in an effort to get kids (and their parents) salivating for this flick.
Yahoo recently posted ten Surf's Up clips (not including the teaser and theatrical trailers) on its website. Presumably, this will remind viewers that there's more than just the Big Three releasing flicks this summer, and could you send some cash our way, pretty please?
Unfortunately, the grainy footage on Yahoo's site doesn't help the cause. I'm not sure if this is a fault of Yahoo or Sony Pictures Animation; it's not really a deal-breaker but, considering that this movie suffers from a lower profile than the competition's offerings, not a good thing.
So, do these Surf's Up clips bring the funny? I would say they're moderately amusing (many of the better bits have already made it into the two trailers). Jon Heder (Blades of Glory, Napoleon Dynamite) looks like he's going to steal the show with his Chicken Joe character, who, at this point, is probably the most memorable thing about this flick. The bit about how he's treated like royalty by a tribe of primitive penguins (they even show him to the "Royal Hot Tub") is helped by Heder's deadpan-stoner delivery. Nicely done.
Other than that, the characters are pretty stock: the young hotshot (Shia Labeouf), the arrogant champion (Dietrich Bader), the sexy lifeguard (Zooey Deschanel) and the Miyagi-mentor (Jeff Bridges) who takes the hotshot under his wing.
Oh yeah, and there are the requisite baby penguins who fill the same role in Surf's Up that the rabbits did in last year's Open Season: to get bashed and battered around in (hopefully) hilarious ways, act like a Greek Chorus and, above all, be cute.
As I've said before, the "mockumentary" format of this movie is semi-interesting, although it invites unfortunate comparisons to Christopher Guest's classic comedies like This is Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman. Other than that, if Surf's Up wants to make a splash (sorry) this summer, it's gonna have to either up the story a few notches or have some better bits in reserve.
Surf's Up hits theatres on June 8th.
Fun Fact: Green Day, whose song "Welcome to Paradise" plays in the background in one of these clips, has recorded their version of The Simpsons theme, which was originally written by Danny Elfman. It will play in The Simpsons Movie, which also airs this summer.
