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A combination of too many animations and too few wave sequences.
By Glenn Kenny
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Jeff Spicoli, the surf-obsessed drifter memorably played by Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982), may have been an idiot, but he had a vocabulary. The things he liked were “twisted” or “huge. “
Today’s true surfing luminaries don’t speak so colorfully. In “The Best Surf Movie in the Universe,” a spectacularly stupid comedy, Professional Surfers’ Association champion Mick Fanning enthuses about an amnesiac colleague: “We used the global in combination to have adventures in the ocean and “It’s Fanning’s voice that generates the enthusiasm, something that deserves to be noted. For most of the image, he is represented through an animated doll.
In Fanning’s defense, the screenplay is written by one of the co-directors, Nick Pollet, whose spouse is Vaughn Blakley. They both have experience in surf documentaries, but that’s the best thing about this film. Instead, the dolls, with minimally articulated limbs, are designed to include Fanning and a few other real-life surfing stars.
These characters (the animation makes Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “Team America: World Police” puppets look like “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) tell a silly story about how a vaccine wiped out all memories of surfing, and a project to bring the activity back. The word “Ten years ago, there was a sport, it was called surfing and you mastered it” – underlined by an insult – is repeated more times than anyone would be amused to hear.
With each new surfer that is discovered, in an assembly whose objective is to make the film about the name, we see a few minutes of real-life surfing footage. The climax of the film introduces the dolls, many of whom have their faces smeared with a brown material. fighting with sex toys. After that, it looks like a longer surfing segment awaits. The relief is palpable. But anyway. The doll absurdities soon resume and then, thankfully, the end credits roll.
The biggest surf movie in the universeUncategorized. Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes. In cinemas.
An earlier edition of this review had misspelled the film’s co-director’s last call. It’s Nick Pollet, not Pollett.
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