THE GREATEST SURF MOVIE IN THE UNIVERSE

The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, Blue Fox Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 15, 2024

If you gave a random kid the dolls and the basic premise of The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, there's probably a good chance that child would come up with funnier jokes and more imaginative storytelling than anything in this movie. Is there anything more dismal than a comedy that doesn't even seem to understand the basics of telling a joke? Well, directors Vaughan Blakey and Nick Pollet take up that challenge by adding into the mix crude animation and a plot so repetitive that the movie's 80 minutes probably could have been cut down to 20.

That's likely being generous, too. Here's the setup: Ten years from now, a pandemic spans the globe and wipes out three-quarters of all life on the planet. A vaccine is developed by a single scientist, and while it stops the virus from spreading, the main side effect is that the vaccinated forget the existence of surfing. This seems like a fair tradeoff.

All of this is first related to us by Luke Hemsworth, playing himself or some post-apocalyptic survivor, and during the credits, there's some behind-the-scenes arguing between the actor and the filmmakers about who his character is and when he's actually telling this story. Those are pretty simple questions to ask Pollet, who also wrote the screenplay, and Blakey, and the only answer Hemsworth receives is that logic isn't important in a movie like this one. That's a fair rebuttal, and if it hadn't come to us after enduring a movie that's only excuse for terrible half-jokes made by dolls and lengthy sections of real-life surfing footage, it might have been a sound counter, too.

Instead, Hemsworth's character explains the back story in explicit detail, and then, we're transferred to a world of animation, in which generic action-figure bodies are topped with heads that have been crafted to look like some of the most talented surfers in the world. They're all men, apparently, and indirectly, the movie makes a compelling case for the sport's women, who were too smart to participate in this dreck, too busy actually surfing to bother with the project, or given the accidental advantage of never being associated with something so degrading of their passion.

The plot has the surf god Hughie (voice of Ronnie Blakely) sending his sidekick Joey (voice of Joe Turpel) to enlist former surfer Mick (Mick Fanning) to enlist a team of five other former surfers to make the greatest surf movie in the universe. First, though, Hughie goes over the back story Hemsworth has just explained in just as much detail, reminding us that, ten years ago, a pandemic spread across the globe, only to be stopped by a scientist whose vaccine erased surfing from humanity's collective memory.

Joey finds Mick and tells him that, ten years ago, a pandemic spread across the globe, only to be stopped by a scientist whose vaccine erased surfing from humanity etc. Mick rediscovers his own memory of being a surfer, and some footage of him cutting through waves plays for us against an original song about the surfer.

Mick then finds Mase (Mason Ho), giving tours of a volcano in Hawaii, and tells him that, ten years ago, a pandemic spread across the globe, only to be stopped by a scientist, whose vaccine erased surfing etc. Mase rediscovers his memory of being a surfer, and some footage of him riding the waves plays for us against an original song about him. Also, he transforms into a unicorn, making it slightly easier for the pair to find the remaining four surfers.

One by one, Mick recruits the other surfers—telling all of them that, ten years ago, a pandemic spread across the globe, only to be stopped etc.—and some footage of Griff (Griffin Colapinto), Ando (Craig Anderson), Freestone (Jack Freestone), and Wilko (Matt Wilkinson) surfing plays out for us over an original song about each one. To be fair, one of the surfers is against vaccines, so he stops Mick in the middle of explaining what happened with the pandemic and the disappearance of surfing.

That's pretty much the extent of the jokes, apart from some cursing (The surfers should not hope to make voice acting a secondary career) and doll genitals and streams of urine, and the plot, beyond a final showdown with the scientist (voiced by Blakey). Thankfully, The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe ends, with Hughie offering a single sentence of critique that should suffice, and ten years from now, we'll hopefully all forget it ever existed.

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