Travelling the world searching for great waves and adventure is the underlying theme of this light hearted travel journal, and in these terms it is a good surfing movie and a great record of the surfer ideal. From Australia to Africa, Alaska, France and Fiji there are a lot of laughs along the way with the two principal travellers, Patrick O’Connell and Robert ‘Wing-nut’ Weaver.
Although the 1966 Endless Summer is regarded as the seminal surfer movie, the long time coming sequel compares favourably, especially in terms of production values. It shares the same innocence and attitude of the first without trying to copy it; it looks better and is funnier too. Geared more towards comedy than philosophy, the Endless Summer II is blessed with Brown’s interesting and economical narration, loaded with quips and some very funny situations. Despite a few of these situations being shameless set ups, it still works because these guys do not take themselves too seriously and it shows. Australia’s short-board pioneer Nat Young stars in Australia as the classic Aussie surfer lad: full of mischief and sage experience. He is too busy having fun to bask in the reverence to which the two young American surfers hold him.
The film uses surfing legends, buddies of Bruce Brown like Young, Gerry Lopez and Sunny Garcia to help carry the boys to their exotic and isolated destinations, and the locals are always coming along for the ride. It is the local flavour that helps make this journal an intimate experience. The sounds and sounds are not just surf and sand. There is always a new group of interesting characters that come and go, sharing the journey with Wing-nut and Pat.
Bruce Brown does not fall into the trap of going over the old ground of the original, though he does lament the effect of development on the perfect wave he found at Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa, made famous in the original Endless Summer.
This is an important connection to the original and a rare moment of seriousness amongst the playful cast and some ripping surf. But Endless Summer II, as with the first, is a little bit about finding your own perfect wave, so there is no time to dwell on that which is lost. Gerry Lopez tells us that he found G-land by looking out the window of a jet airliner as it passed over Java en-route to Bali, and we are given reason to believe that it can still be done.
And talking of interesting plane trips, keep an eye out for the sea plane landing in Costa Rica. Whether Wing-nut and Pat were onboard doesn’t matter, but there is something about the build up to this near disaster and miraculous save that cracks me up in fits of laughter every time, and I first saw Endless Summer II eight years ago.
The cinematography is beautiful for a comedic documentary on surfer culture but the stunning locations make that very easy to achieve. The picture is sharp and bright but the same attention was not paid to the transfer of the grainy original theatrical trailer but who cares? You get to see all that in the film! What I do care for is the disappointing lack of special features which are limited to the aforementioned trailer and a picture gallery resembling a collection of gay-porn thumbnails. An opportunity for extra footage, wipe-outs and a revisitation of the original Endless Summer has been missed.
The soundtrack is really outstanding: none of the extreme hard core heavy metal clichés but fast and energetic nonetheless. The music slows down sometimes too, when the situation calls for a more reflective mood or to help soak in the breaking waves under a dreamy setting sun……. Ummm, OK, so maybe it’s just a little clichéd. It’s a surfer film, remember! You must have breaking waves and setting suns: it’s the law!
Endless Summer II is a great piece to own. It is the kind of DVD that you can watch and enjoy over and over again from start to finish or pick out a favourite break and check out the chapters that are broken down by country. Eeeeeasy. Cold and rainy out? Just stick Endless Summer II into the DVD player and get your togs on. But be warned, watching this movie might see you chucking it all in and jumping aboard the next leaky old boat that will drop you out the back of some faraway reef in search of your own perfect wave.
