Blue Crush: Review By moviegeek

I have only seen three movies about surfing. One was the fantastically entertaining animated movie, 'Surf's Up'. The other was Kathryn Bigelow's 'Point Break'. This one falls at the bottom of my short list, but because the genre isn't tired yet, I still had a sense of amazement with some of the beautiful camera-work.

Kate Bosworth plays Anne Marie, a surfer since childhood. Working as a part-time maid to help support her younger sister, she and her friends run into a resident football team on vacation. Anne Marie falls for one of the players (presumably the quarterback, played by Matthew Davis). She is also invited, of course, to one of the biggest surfing competitions in the country.

The movie seems like it would just be a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit movie, but there are actually no references by any of the characters to someone else's body. The girls don't comment on the shirtless guys and vise-versa for the men. Its obvious that the makers wanted this to be a sports movie and taken seriously as such.

When the waves begin to crash and the surfers tunnel through them, I was astonished by the cinematography. I have always been fascinated by moving water (weird, I know), but Blue Crush is shot so well that the water truly does seem villainous. There is no real tension between the characters. Its simply the surfer against the wave.

Problems run amok in this movie, however. All of the scenes, except maybe the final competition, are strangely under-lit. There seems to be a smokescreen over some of the shots. Also, the acting is so casual that it's hardly credible. Each actor seems to have a dull part or no breathing room in the part they have. The actors have a robotic form to their actions. The younger sister tends to slow the pace of the picture down in a needless extra role.

But the surfing is amazingly well shot. It's an odd sport because I can never tell if they are doing it right or wrong (minus, of course, falling off of the board). There aren't any tricks shown either. This is a casual movie with a forgettable taste. Blue Crush is very watchable and painlessly entertaining. But there is no real substance or seniority amongst other movies.