Blue Crush on DVD

Surfing, without the Internet…

We’d heard this movie was a raving feminist empowerment flick, which rubbed us the wrong way on principle, but in the end it wasn’t like that at all.

Rather, it’s a rather typical pursuit of excellence tale where the gender or background of the protagonist is basically irrelevant, as it should be, but the pursuit itself is the focus of the film, as it should be.

Despite that, however, it’s still a pretty lame attempt at a movie, though there are some amazing shots of surfing that make you wonder how they managed to get them on film (watch the supplementary materials to find out, though it’s portrayed so matter of factly to make it look disappointingly simple).

But the movie itself is very predictable, a bit of “Lilo and Stitch” coupled with “Rocky” and innumerable beach and/or surf movies, with a little bit of “Saturday Night Fever’s” everyman (or woman, to quote “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”) trying to become someone special.

Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth) is a champion-class surfer who has a chance to compete in the big leagues if only she can get over a wipeout from a few years earlier where she bashed her face into the coral. Meanwhile, she’s living as a surrogate mother to her younger sister, Penny (Mika Boorem) and eking out a marginal existence as a chambermaid - though an unprofessional one, which turns around and bites her.

One of the guests at the hotel where she worked is an NFL quarterback, the proverbial nice guy (Matthew Davis), and he hires Anne Marie and her friends (Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake) to give him and his friends surfing lessons.

But it’s the big competition that has her wound up tightly. Should she try or should she give it a miss? Does she have what it takes?

Spoiler alert: Don't read the following paragraph if you don't want to know the ending.

Well, as you can undoubtedly guess, she tries and though she doesn’t win (surprisingly enough, we didn't predict this), she does well to gain the attention she needs and in the process exorcizes her demons and opens up the rest of her life.

It’s all very predictable, right down to her face plant on the coral again, but there are worse things than showing kids they really can be what they dream if only they have the courage to try.

The performances are all fine, but it’s the surfing footage that really makes this movie something different from the ordinary. Those waves are really something, powerful and forbidding as they crash inexorably inland, showing the humans who dare brave them that they really are small and fragile compared with the power of Mother Nature.

If only that power could be harnessed as an energy source…

The widescreen picture and the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound really do the waves justice as the audio and video washes over the audience. Unfortunately, those who purchase the separately sold Pan&Scan version will lose some of this majesty to get the short term “gain” of a picture that reaches the top and bottom of their 4x3 TV’s, which is yet another reason Hollywood should either dump the P&S versions or offer both in the same package to help facilitate the changeover to 16x9 TV’s that’s already well under way.

Fortunately, we received the anamorphic widescreen version and the picture quality is very good, with a wonderful color picture that, though a tad soft, looks really good over all. Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and it’s very good as well, especially when the waves wash over the audience from front to rear, with good use of the low frequency effects channel.

There are plenty of extras in the collector’s edition as well. First up is a running commentary by stars Bosworth, Rodriguez and Lake, and a separate commentary by director John Stockwell. There’s also a pretty good “Making of” documentary, a backgrounder on how they got that spectacular surfing footage, and a look at the history, terminology, equipment and “the best places” of surfing.

You also get some footage of surfing wipeouts, a Lenny Kravitz music video, cast/crew bios and DVD ROM features.

Blue Crush, from Universal Home Video
105 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible/Pan&Scan (not 16x9 TV compatible) SOLD SEPARATELY, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Sande Lake
Produced by Brian Grazer, Karen Kehela
Written by Lizzy Weiss & John Stockwell, Directed by John Stockwell

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