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• 1080p High Definition

• Deleted Scenes

• Audio Commentaries

• Photo Gallery

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• Short Animated Film Bonus

Special Feature Rating:

Teenage Rockhopper penguin Cody Maverick (voiced by Shia LaBeouf), an up-and-coming surfer, enters his first pro competition. Followed by a camera crew to document his experiences, Cody leaves his family and home in Shiverpool, Antarctica to travel to Pen Gu Island for the Big Z Memorial Surf Off. Along the way, Cody meets Sheboygan surfer Chicken Joe (Jon Heder), famous surf promoter Reggie Belafonte, surf talent scout Mikey Abromowitz, and spirited lifeguard Lani Aliikai (Zooey Deschanel), all of whom recognize Cody's passion for surfing, even if it's a bit misguided at times. Cody believes that winning will bring him the admiration and respect he desires, but when he unexpectedly comes face-to-face with a washed-up old surfer, Cody begins to find his own way, and discovers that a true winner isn't always the one who comes in first.

Story Rating:

From the textures of jungle foliage to slick ice to the sheen of penguin feathers and the reflectivity of water, the video and animation quality of Surf's Up are top notch. In CGI worlds, I look for a semblance of weight or gravity in the characters and objects. The animators of Surf's Up did an admirable job rendering movement, waves and objects to appear to carry heft. The goal wasn't realism, but just a sense of mass in the visual proceedings to take it a step beyond the average animation.

The MPEG-4 codec delivers gobs of detail. I notice a great deal of fine film grain. This ran counter to my expectations of seeing a washed-out, glitzy, overly post-produced picture. Heavy over-production is not the case here. The 1.85:1 image was solid, with good contrast and deep blacks. The colors were vibrant, but not annoyingly so. While CGI never seems particularly convincing in its cheap illusion of depth, kids will get lost in the lush videostage.

Picture Rating:

The voices and sound effects achieved good definition and strong midrange clarity. On this BD, Sony went beyond most expectations by including both uncompressed PCM and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks. Unfortunately, these are based on a 16-bit, 48 kHz master, so the overall sound is not much better than run-of-the-mill CD quality.

Sound Rating:

Overall Rating:

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