Buzzfeed article ranking: 5
"Go big, or go home."
Among this phenomenal movie's many virtues is its availability on DVD, extremely rare for a Disney Channel movie.
Johnny Kapahala lives in a postcard caricature of Hawaii, and he loves it there. He lives 18 inches from the ocean, he goes surfing every day, and he spends every waking hour hanging loose with his brahs. He's a chip off his grandpa's block, and his fastidious, responsible pop doesn't care for it. But when Pop gets a job running the IT department at a private high school, Johnny finds himself dragged to the East Coast.
The Kapahalas touch down in a postcard caricature of Vermont, and Johnny can't stand it. He's surrounded by bluebloods and trust-fund babies who wear sweater vests and never say the word "brah"; the other students don't like him, and the headmaster doesn't dig his Big Lebowski attitude toward life. Most bogus of all, there's no place to shoot the tubes, let alone hang ten—all these New Englanders ever do is ski. Finally things start looking up when Johnny meets Sam (Lee Thompson Young), a righteous dude who attends the local public school and spends his free time snowboarding.
We learn that the biggest mountain in town is split right down the middle because of a family feud between two twin brothers. Randy is a starchy, no-nonsense poindexter who owns half of the mountain, where private school kids come to ski. The other half of the mountain is dedicated to snowboarding public schoolers, and it's owned by the easy-going, party-hardy slacker brother, Eddie.
Johnny feels right at home boarding with Sam and the other "urchins," but the private school kids look down on him, and Pop worries that he's mixing with the wrong crowd. Johnny thinks the whole system stinks, so he skips town with Sam and high-tails it back to Hawaii to go surfing with Grandpa.
Grandpa, ever the laid-back dude, refuses to force the boys to go home. Instead, he lets them make that decision on their own, and when they do, he tags along. Pop and Grandpa finally make their peace.
All that remains is for Johnny to reunite Randy and Eddie and bring the preppies and the urchins together at last. This he does by racing one of the mean prep school kids down the mountain, which solves everybody's problems.
No question about it, this stands head and shoulders above most Disney Channel movies. It features a genuinely interesting plot, a lot of goofy fleece dreadlock hats, and a thrilling stunt sequence featuring Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century. It also includes the song "The Way" by Fastball, lest anyone should ever forget exactly what year this was produced.
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