Right now, with the rains pouring down every other day, watching a movie about the open ocean, swimming and surfing might chill you to the bone.

But wait till you see the sunny beaches and the cute little penguins scuttling along the sea shore — you’ll get a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart that you won’t be able to shake off even after leaving the theatre. Surf’s Up envisions a world where penguins rule the earth. In fact, they were the ones who first invented surfing.

The biggest name in surfing is that of Zeke ‘Big Z’ Topanga. Big Z was a hero to all young penguins who aspired to become major league surfers. Years after Big Z’s death, a young Rockhopper penguin named Cody Maverick decides to leave his home in Antarctica and compete in the World Surfing Championship in the tropical Pen Gu island.

There, he makes friends with a surfing chicken, a lifeguard and an old penguin who teach him friendship and loyalty is more important than winning competitions. Surf’s Up has no hangover from Happy Feet; in fact, the film takes a dig at the earlier animated picture right at the beginning. It is shot in the format of a documentary on Cody’s journey from Antarctica to Pen Gu.

The dialogues are tangy, but not upbeat. What keeps the film interesting is the way it has been shot. The layout department at Sony Pictures Animation used a special motion-capture camera system mounted on an old Sony video camera to give the illusion that it was being made with a real hand-held video camera. This makes it look as good as a live reality show.

Another great thing is the great chemistry shared by Shia LaBeouf who plays Cody and Jeff Bridges, who plays the washed out surfer Geek. All the actors who provided the voices for the movie got to record in the same room together. James Woods makes his character Reggie Belafonte, the talent scout, lively and interesting, but there are no other greats in the voices department. In all, Surf’s Up is a good treat for the kids on a wet, rainy weekend.