Johnny Tsunami vastly improves upon Brink!’s failures
Also, Johnny Kapahala =/= Johnny Tsunami.
I vividly remember seeing Johnny Tsunami (1999) as a kid. I was resting on my parents’ bed the night of one of the Scripps National Spelling Bees. I decided to watch this instead of the bee. I do not regret this decision.
Why do I remember this night so well? Not sure, though it may have been because it was one of the first times I went into a movie with zero expectations and came out loving it.
And how could I not talk about it without mentioning the previous extreeeeme film: Brink!? Both have similar plots and themes, but I think Johnny Tsunami makes a better effort toward making a decent movie instead of pandering to its target demographic. Because of this, it feels less dated, unlike other children’s entertainment from the time.
It’s a film that balanced out its ‘edginess’ with solid dialogue, characters, and story. But it was the deeper elements that really made this a good film. Bear with me, because there’s quite a bit to talk about with this movie.
What stood out the most for me were the complex themes layered into the story. There’s xenophobia, classism, racism, fear of change, father-son dynamics; so much is there. Let’s dive into each of these.
Johnny Kapahala (Brandon Baker) is a top surfer in Hawaii and the grandson of surfing legend Johnny Tsunami. He was happy with his life in sunny Hawaii until his father got a new job and relocated to snowy, freezing Vermont.
The early scenes of Johnny in Vermont were strange. His parents didn’t even bring a coat to put on the plane for him? They let him get off the plane in his normal shirt and shorts. That’s a cruel joke.
The other odd moment was him waltzing into an elite private school on the first day with no uniform. You had a week to prepare for school and you bought no uniform ahead of time? I’m pretty sure they sell dress clothes in Hawaii.
I get that it was all supposed to be played for laughs, but Johnny isn’t stupid. Naive, yes, but not stupid. He even tried to wear an Hawaiian shirt with his uniform before being sent to the office for violating the dress code. Come on.
These actions do nothing more than set up the character’s free-spirit personality in an elite, conservative environment. It’s unclear whether Johnny fully changed the attitude of the school as a whole, but he does succeed in bringing together the skiing (rich) side and the snowboarding (poor) sides of the mountain.
What stood out the most for me were the complex themes layered into the story. There’s xenophobia, classism, racism, fear of change, father-son dynamics; so much is there.
Which brings us to the classism issue. Since I assume the writer didn’t think children would understand the divide between rich and poor, he added something extra to hammer the message in.
The rich kids go to the private school, and their nickname is the Skies. The poor kids go to the public school, and their names are…the Urchins. The brief conversation between Johnny and Emily (Kirsten Storms, AKA Zenon) highlights an important point:
Emily: Kids who go to Maple Valley are the Urchins.
Johnny: They definitely got ripped when it came to picking names.
Emily: I never thought about it.
Notice how apathetic Emily is. The names carry more weight than she realizes. It’s simply the status quo for her and everyone in the town.
After the owner of the mountain resort died, the family split ownership of the land and stopped speaking to each other. The mountain was split down the middle, with the private school kids (who ski) on one side and the public school kids (who snowboard) on the other.
The main antagonist in the film is Johnny’s classmate, Brett (Zachary Bostrom). As the name implies, he’s the movie’s rich asshole character (sorry to all Bretts out there — even Johnny’s grandfather could guess he was a Brett). Interestingly enough, he doesn’t change at all as a character and just leaves the movie after he loses the big race at the end.
Brett’s the worst kind of asshole: The Asshole for No Reason™. He was a douche beforehand, sure, but he didn’t even know Johnny before he started bullying him. Ironically, the only DCOM I’ve seen so far with a properly-justified antagonist was The Thirteenth Year, but that was a lost opportunity because the script abandoned that plot line two-thirds into the film.
Because of Brett’s douchebaggery, Johnny is pushed away from skiing. He ends up meeting Sam (Lee Thompson Young), a public school kid, who teaches Johnny how to snowboard. His father is in the military, so he’s always moving from place to place.
Johnny and Sam have great chemistry together. They’re both laid-back with strict fathers. Each of them are trying to find fulfillment in their lives through something they enjoy. It helps that Baker and Thompson are talented actors. In fact, the whole cast was talented. There really weren’t any weak links (at least with the main cast).
The headmaster’s interactions with Johnny are notable because they point out some underlying issues with the school (and to some extent, the town). The headmaster makes everyone wear uniforms because it puts everyone on an equal footing. He only focuses on what the students achieve. It’s a noble cause, and will prepare them for life in the future, but it strips them of all individuality in their prime years of development.
Johnny is a circle being forced into a triangular hole. He’ll lose a lot of his core being if he is forced into an environment like this.
This conflict peaks when the headmaster asks Johnny to stop hanging out with the Urchins. He seems to feel threatened at the friction that Johnny’s non-conformity created. Not to mention that his daughter almost died when she tried snowboarding on the other side of the mountain.
I honestly can’t blame him. When you have a student who is known to cause trouble, it’s hard to justify keeping them in school when your daughter nearly dies because of said student.
Johnny’s parents are divided over their son’s issues in and out of school. His father, Pete, is more down-to-earth, given how his own father (famed surfer Johnny Tsunami) is always laid-back and didn’t take life seriously.
While you may not agree with Pete, you understand where he’s coming from. Instead of surfing like his father, he worked hard to provide for his family (Hawaii’s not a cheap place to live). When seeing that his son is going the same route as his father, he feels more justified in moving away from Hawaii. This is what a good antagonist looks like (looking at you, Brett).
Johnny’s mother, Melanie, is more sympathetic toward her son’s interests. He may be a free spirit like his grandfather, but he knows what he likes and he’s willing to put all his time and energy into what he loves. Johnny has strong bond with his grandfather because he encourages Johnny to be the best person he can.
At the same time, though, she understands that change eventually happens in life. You will have to deal with those changes.
Ironically, Johnny learns this lesson from the last person he expects: his grandfather. When Sam finds out he’s moving to Iceland, he and Johnny run away from home and stow away on a military airplane to Hawaii. I’m still not sure how that happened, but maybe pre-9/11 rules were much more lenient.
Grandpa Tsunami lets them stay as long as they want. Instead of forcing them to go back, he helps them make that decision on their own. He uses waves as a metaphor for change and the challenges that come with it.
Grandpa Tsunami: “Sometimes they don’t look like waves. Sometimes they look like mounds of snow and sometimes they look like things you don’t really want to do.”
It’s a good message that fits the movie perfectly. He encourages Johnny to “find his own greatness” and face the challenges of a new, colder environment.
Grandpa Tsunami tags along on the flight back to Hawaii, allowing for more character development. He has a heart-to-heart conversation with Pete about his own faults as a father. He wished that Pete didn’t quit surfing, but he knew that he couldn’t force him to do it.
The same logic applies to Johnny and Pete. Pete can’t force Johnny to do something he doesn’t want to do, just as his own father couldn’t force him to surf. It’s a touching moment that really put the movie at a higher level than other DCOMs.
The final race between Brett and Johnny is fairly entertaining, but seems like a rehash of the race in Brink! (which I liked more because the character interactions were better during the race). When Brett loses, he just kind of leaves, never to be seen again. I wish there was more development on his side.
As much as I love this movie, it’s not perfect. I’d say it’s a ‘classic’ in relation to the other films in the canon. It has silly moments, but the movie is surprisingly emotional. As a TV movie, it’s one of the better ones. As a DCOM, it’s one of the best.
Fun fact: the film is produced by the same guy who produced House Party and Dumb and Dumber. I don’t know what that means, but I’ll let you interpret that as you wish.
I’ll do a longer tribute for Lee Thompson Young when I do my Jett Jackson:The Movie review, but I feel that I need to address it a little here since this was his first DCOM role. On August 19, 2013, Lee Thompson Young committed suicide. He was a great actor whom I miss dearly. I love when a child star turns out alright when they get older, but you never know what’s really going on in someone’s life. I wish I had the opportunity to see him in much more. Rest in peace.
The next film in the queue is Genius, which I may have seen before, but recall so little of it. I doubt it’ll be that good, but you never know.
This is part of an ongoing series on the entire Disney Channel Original Movie canon. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram to r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶r̶a̶m̶b̶l̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ stay updated on my posts.
