Movie Nation

“The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe” is nothing of the sort.

But give it to the stoners who sat around a barbie and dreamed-up this daft would-be-romp. Mixing live-action surfing footage in with a loopy sci-fi story “acted” out by plastic action figures based on today’s most famous wave riders is a novel way of getting around casting actors, building sets, staging fights and Aussie beers busts and what not.

It’s kind of shambolic, half-assed and terrible, but almost amusing in the right frame of mind (altered) and with the right audience (surfers).

A “Road Warrior” cast-off narrator (Luke Hemsworth) tells us of a future when a virus has wiped out much life on Earth, and “all memory that surfing existed.” But the surf god Huey (Ronnie Blakely‘s voice and action figure) charges surfer Mick Fanning and World Surf League commentator Joe Turpel (sometimes in action figure form, sometimes as a unicorn) to assemble half a dozen former surfers, convince them that this sport once existed and get them on film.

“The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe” will remind the world, especially surfers, of what they’re missing.

After they’ve considered the ethical consequences of “maybe we shouldn’t make this movie. Maybe we should keep these waves to ourselves,” they dive into their quest, wrestling assorted “patchouli-smelling hippy f—sticks” now acting as rock stars and “Circus” yurt bar owners that they used to be Jack Freestone, Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto and others “who f—–g dominated” the sport the world forgot about.

A villain and a vaccine played a part in this anti-surf calamity, so at lease they got the “f—sticks” part right. And naturally, The GOAT may have to be consulted before all is said and done.

With plastic action figure nudity, scalogical humor and mock (plastic) violence, it’s harmless enough, save for that RFJ-Jr. “vaccine” phobia peddled to rubes element. The surf pop, surf folk and surf hip hop ditties are OK, and the surf slang and thick dose of Oz accents makes even limp lines kind of funny, here and there.

“All this time I’ve been eating sand and grating cheese on my abs when I could have been surfing!”

Yeah, mate. Talk about misplaced priorities.

Rating: unrated, gory doll violence, doll nudity and lots of profanity

Cast: The voices of Mick Fanning, Joe Turpel, Ronnie Blakely, Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto, Vaughan Blakey and Kelly Slater, with Luke Hemsworth

Credits: Directed by Vaughan Blakey and Nick Pollet, scripted by Nick Pollet. A Blue Fox release.

Running time: 1:22

The couple can’t miss them, a bearded old man and a small boy eating street food, then curling up under cardboard when night falls just on the other side of the gate that guards the couple’s middle class bungalow.

They’re childless, we can see, and while the charity — food, and then shelter — they extend to Grandpa Lolo and “The Kid” is certainly borne of compassion, there might be something else they can do to “help” this tiny homeless Filipino family on their doorstep.

Maybe they can “adopt” the boy? Just a thought.

Teary-eyed Lolo (Joel Torre) sees the good life they can offer the school age moppet (Euwenn Mikael Aleta) in his care. His grandson will have a chance at a real life, school, a future. He reluctantly accepts over the crying jag The Kid greets this news with. It’s for the best.

But later that night, in pyjamas, drying his tears, the kid stuffs a bag with electronics and valuables, slips out and they’re off. It’s another evening’s perfect con for “Lolo and the Kid.”

Filipino writer-director Benedict Mique (“Monday First Screening”) leans hard on the sentimental in this picareseque street scene. These two are pros — cynical, experienced hustlers, but Torre’s performance as Lolo convinces us, and this childless couple, that gay couple, that rich former street urchin who made good, that he’s a “grandpa” who can see each offer (cash included) would almost certainly be the best thing for this child who turns out to NOT be his grandson.

But every time, the kid does his part, doors are unlocked, loot is grabbed, their long-suffering fence (David Minemoto) is cheated when they sell laptops and the like to fuel their amusement park, binge-eating, karaoke bar and hotel room daily routine as scam artists.

Well, almost every time.

There’s teaching going on, as Lolo instructs that the world is divided into “those who cheat and those who get cheated (in Filipino and English).” Who needs school? “Everything you’d learn in school you can learn on the streets!”

Mique may set us up nicely for that first fake-out. But as he pulls comic and satiric punches with most of these heists, we know he sees “maudlin” as the only logical direction to take this thing.

The victims aren’t Chaplinesque objects of scorn or fun as haste-to-adopt-or-not, they each seem to have the boy’s best intentions at heart.

The funniest exchanges are with “Fatty” the stolen goods-buying pawner/”fence.” But the song the 50something and little boy (he looks 8 or 9) duet to at the karaoke bar is worth a giggle, if you remember “Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits.” And the kid trying to sneak a sip of the beer Lolo indulges in earns a comical lecture that jabs Aussie and New Zealand tourists.

Booze now, and “what’s next? Drugs? Sex? RUGBY?”

Torre’s a sturdy presence holding the story together, but the lack of surprises and fear of getting too “edgy” undo a promising portrait of street life among the “cheaters” who start to feel the “cheated” may have something to offer beyond what they can steal from them.

Rating: TV-MA, theft, an accident, profanity

Cast: Joel Torre, Euwenn Mikael Aleta, David Minemoto and Iza Calzado

Credits: Scripted and directed by Benedict Mique. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:37

Ayo Edebiri, Carlos Jacott and Harris Yulin also star in this improbable tale of trying to become the person you always meant to be Via time travel and “a black hole growing in the middle of her body.”

Sept. 20.

Bullied for her weight until she meets someone who shows her how to “own” it, this uplifting comedy stars Mia Kaplan as the teen designer/dressmaker and Jemima Yevu as the classmate who opens her eyes.

Missy Pyle, Jolene Purdy and Rainn Wilson play the supportive adults in this Sept 27 release.

This trailer is gloom and doom and dark and bloody.

With fanboy/fangirl fave Aaron TJ in the title role, and Russell Crowe playing the father who taught him violence, this should be quite the holiday…treat.

Ariana DuBose is Calypso, Alessandro Nivola is the heavy.

“Venom” and “Deadpool” without the laughs?

Has enough of a “Wolverine” vibe — snow and slaughter, a Russian prison etc. — to pique the curiosity.

Well doesn’t this look plucky and heart warming? I bet Greg Kinnear cries. Or makes us cry.

This opens August 30

It’s almost always funny when the subject of a surprise party belts the person who planned the party in the eye the moment they’re shocked with the shout of “SURPRISE!”

“I guess those cardio kick-boxing lessons paid off!” another guest at the party might say, as more than one does in the propose-during-a-surprise-party rom-com “Surprise!”

“Surprise!” is a comedy of spoiled surprises, dashed-expectations, complications that range from silly to serious all served up by a cast that enlarges every time the damned doorbell rings.

Good God, it’s cluttered.

Director and co-writer Nate Hapke turns up in the cast as the most insufferable guest at this awkward fete filled with sibling rivarry, competing agendas and scheming support groups trying to “help” our prespective bride and groom figure out what’s going on and whether or not it’s a good idea.

There are little moments that amuse — the would-be bride Jane (Melanie Thompson) landing that haymaker on her suitor, party-planner and ring-offerer Ethan (Bryce Harrow).

The complications are way over the top. Ethan has a total of three brothers — by a couple of different mothers. Jane’s got two siblings who each take their shot at stealing her “special day” from her, if only by accident.

Ethan’s older brother Mack (Rob Harrow) resents little brother Ethan one-upping him, and securing granny’s ring to propose with. So he shows up with a dizzy pixie named Ashleigh (Jamie Miller) instead of the longtime love Ashley (Charlie Carr), who also shows up, but with “Rebound Roger” (Justin Sorvillo).

Virginal younger brother Clark (Aaron Sanders) is assigned to photograph everyone and every “moment” and lusts after every woman in the party as he does. Older brother Walt (Lee Shorten) may be here to save the day, or at least drag a chihuahua from the rescue group he works for to foist on Jane as a birthday gift.

Cait (Marissa Hood) is gay, flying solo today for reasons unknown and is the first to sense that “something is up.”

Because Ethan hasn’t tipped anybody but his siblings that he’s going to propose. He hasn’t even gotten the basic go-ahead to pursue this idea of “marriage” from Jane.

Once Jane’s posse has their suspicions, Ethan’s brothers want to know what they know, and vice versa.

Other guests are in the dark as all this lame “intel gathering” goes on.

And what better way to top the day off than by having Granny come by and throw another monkey wrench into Ethan’s plans?

Serious issues like Dad’s string of faithless marriages — “We all turn into our parents eventually.” — mix with the trivial as the doorbell and phone keep ringing as this ex drops in, that happy couple shows up newly-engaged or another one announces they’re “expecting.”

Any combination of five or so of these disparate threads could have been teased into something funny.

Hapke & Co. keep piling on ideas and characters who might have a promising moment, a quirky character trait worth indulging or developing into something funny.

A “How seriously should ANYbody take Bon Jovi?” running gag shows promise.

“Hey, NO ONE understands the human heart like JBJ!”

But the screenplay never gets past that “workshop this into something sharper” stage, and the many players never transcend that “promising introduction” that their characters are given.

Rating: unrated, PG-ish

Cast: Melanie Thompson, Bryce Harrow, Marissa Hood, Rob Harrow, Charlie Carr, Aaron Sanders, Nate Hapke, Jamie Miller, Lee Shorten

Credits: Directed by Nate Hapke, scripted by Nate Hapke and Rosie Grace. A Freestyle release.

Running time: 1:31

“The Beast Within” is a stylish, allegorical werewolf thriller that toys with its mysteries but can never escape the absurdity that clumsy plotting built into it.

Alexander J. Farrell’s British woodslands tale is seen through the eyes of a child. Willow (Caoilinn Springall) lives in a remote highlands compound (actually Yorkshire) with her mother (Ashleigh Cummings of “The Goldfinch”), father (Kit Harington) and grandpa (Harington’s “Game of Thrones” co-star James Cosmo).

It’s a not-quite-idyllic life, with no school and her needing daily doses from an oxygen tank. And every so often, Mum bundles up Dad in a fur rug, stuffs a squealing pig into the Land Rover and heads off deep into the woods for…something.

A prologue tipped us off that this is werewolf country and that we’d be watching a werewolf tale. Free-spirited mother Imogen, who changes into a dress whenever she and Willow skip off to town for supplies, seems unhappy. Grandpa knows this.

Dad? He’s an old school wood-cutter — apparently. “I’m KING of this Forest,” he bellows playfully to his child. But he has his dark side.

“Mummy?”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“Are we SAFE?”

Willow sees Dad’s mood swings. Or does she dream them? They have him naked, in a ruined stone holding pen, transforming into a werewolf, his wife unleashing him on yet another hapless pig.

The allegory laid out here is obvious once you take in the nature of the marriage. But director and co-writer Alexander J. Farrell (“Refugee”) teases us with the supernaturalism of it all.

As we see the parents leave for anothe pig-sacrifice deep into the forest, Willow somehow shows up at the place where they park to witness the horrors Daddy Noah commits. For a minute there, I wondered if Willow was a werewolf. How else could a nine year-old on OXYGEN chase them miles away from the house?

The picture’s haphazard long before the third act botches its allegory and undercuts any hope of rising suspense as it defies all common sense, time and again. Our co-writer/director clutters his plot with red herrings.

He breaks Chekhov’s Gun Principle, taking pains to introduce Grandpa’s gun, then dispensing with it in the silliest fashion possible.

The performances are more effective than affecting, although every player has her or his “moment.” There are interesting ideas thrown in, but they’re bandied about, not really addressed or dealt with.

The finale reaches a somewhat satisfying “werewolf” climax, then staggers into “in case you missed the allegory” explanations.

The result is more frustrating than anything else.

Rating: R, violence, nudity

Cast: Kit Harington, Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo and Caoilinn Springall

Credits: Directed by Alexander J. Farrell, scripted by Greer Ellison and Alexander J Farrell. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:37

One of the under-appreciated Kings of Film Comedy, Blake Edwards did “Pink Panther” movies, and “10,” “Victor/Victoria” and the pretty good skewering of Hollywood, “SOB.”

The Panther movies are a grand thing to be remembered for, kid-friendly slapstick “sex farces” that immortalized Peter Sellers and thrilled generations, including mine. I think he was the second movie maker I remembered by name. And Hitchcock was first only because he tried a lot harder to be a household name.

He was “politically incorrect” before that was “cool,” casting Sellers — who considered it a part of his repertoire to play Asian and South Asian characters as well as Italian and French ones. Edwards indulged this most famously in the hilarious Sellers farce “The Party,” about an Indian extra showing up at the wrap party and bringing mayhem with him.

Edwards kept pushing boundaries and bending the culture. The first “gay” movie millions of Americans flocked to? “Victor/Victoria.” A midlife crisis about the emptiness of an idealized, much-younger (“Trophy wife” age) bombshell? Bo Derek was the perfect “10,” and Dudley Moore the perfect sap to worship her…from afar. Because reality in that May-October romance is a lot less than it seems.

Edwards married Julie Andrews and worked and worked until he gave her the grand comeback she deserved.

Robert Preston, James Garner, William Holden, John Ritter, Bruce Willis and Bette Midler, a LOT of actors worked with Blake Edwards, a LOT of them more than once. They knew a safe bet when they saw one.

No, you probably don’t remember Ritter in the sex comedy “Skin Deep.” But the blackout nude “glow in the dark condoms” scene in that may have been the biggest laugh I’ve ever heard in a theater.

Musicals, Westerns (“Wild Rovers”), Edwards did it all and did it all well.

An “American Master?” Damned straight. About time they got around to him. Aug. 27 on PBS.

A chiller about the ’60s/70s “dating” game show, with Anna K. playing a struggling actress who gets on the show for exposure and figures out the awful truth about it and herself in the process.

Doesn’t look as if this one has a release date yet, but it seems to have distribution and Kendrick is usually a safe bet in anything indie.