The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe . . . but, not really

This could be anti-vaxxer RFK Jr.’s favorite new surfing movie, but that’s not a compliment. It starts with the premise that the next big pandemic was treated with a vaccine that erased all memory of surfing, as a strange, undetected side effect. Of course, that rather perturbs the “Surf God,” so he enlists champion Australian surfer Mick Fanning to re-awaken the surfing memories of five fellow former surfing greats, to make a surfing film that will make the whole world re-embrace the sport. At least that is how the narrator, Luke Hemsworth playing his future, post-pandemic self explains it in Vaughan Blakey & Nick Pollet’s The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, which opens today in theaters.

When the Surf God gives Fanning his marching orders, he references many previous surfing movies, but bizarrely overlooks Bruce Brown’s classic documentaries—The Endless Summer is probably the best known, but Barefoot Adventure has a terrific Bud Shank soundtrack. This film could have used some Bud shank music, but it really just needs help in general.

In an agonizingly slow process, Fanning recruits real-life surfers Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto, Craig Anderson, Jack Freestone, and Matt Wilkinson, playing goofy stop-motion animated versions of themselves, giving them each the same repetitive pitch. Each time he reawakens their surfing memories, we are treated to a highlight reel of their greatest wave-riding hits. Unfortunately, a lot of this footage loses its novelty for viewers who just spent two weeks watching Olympic surfing.

This hardly needs to be said, but Blakey and Pollet are no Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Greatest Surf Movie does not compare well to Team America World Police or any other rude animated film for adults. Despite constantly taking the low, scatological road, they rarely get laughs. Instead, the attempts at gross-out humor inspire embarrassment and sometimes pity.

The only exception is Hemsworth, whose grouchy, scenery-chewing persona is rather amusing. Presumably, he is angry because he lost a bet that forced him to appear in Greatest Surf Movie as a result.

Remember kids, just because your naked puppets are vomiting, it doesn’t necessarily make them funny. Maybe this kind of defiantly juvenile naughtiness could have worked as a fifteen-minute short film, but Blakey and Pollet stretch their narrative far beyond the breaking point. Not recommended, The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe (not really) opens today (8/16) in New York at the AMC Empire.