Exceeded expectations
I went to the Los Angeles premier and was pleasantly surprised. Sure it's a teen surf movie, but it happens to be a surprisingly good teen surf movie.
Far better acting than expected thanks to a good director, with enough emotional rises and falls to actually touch the audience. Add an on-screen level of production quality that far exceeds the direct-to-video expectations, and you have a good film. The only exception were the occasional obvious switches from the actors to the pro-surfers in the water who did the real tricky surfing. I bet some at Universal have contemplated taking it theatrical.
Bottom line: for what it is - a strait to video surf movie sequel - it far, far exceeds expectations.