Blue Juice

It is no easy life, if you're nearing thirties and you are a British surfer! Soon you'll have to settle down and make out your living somehow. In 'Blue Juice' yesterday has come suddenly to JC, who is played by Sean Pertwee – an actor who looks a bit like Robert Redford or Graham Chapman. His buddies are in same situation: not young anymore, penniless and without proper job. JC was once a great surfer, who now has to leave his post with dignity. He has to go surfing once more even if it's dangerous. By successfully completing his final task he would leave the field as a legend and also renew his relationship with his girlfriend Chloe.

Quite considerable supporting actors for this film are Ewan McGregor and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who play decent roles but are shadowed by Pertwee's performance. The now available DVD-cover does not present Pertwee, but Zeta-Jones and McGregor on the cover, which is somewhat misleading. If you wanted to see Catherine and Ewan on the movie, you'll have to accept that they're not the stars in this one, although you'll see them in quite many scenes.

The film is in its aspects very retrospective. Marc Bolan rocks on a record player and the characters are dreaming about King Arthur and his knights. As a curiosity, 'Blue Juice' is an excellent chance to see Zeta-Jones playing a young woman and in some scenes she's even furious, which is quite exciting.

This movie is currently sitting at an overall score of 5 which is about right.

Its a middle of the road easy watch of a movie, something for a hangover perhaps?

There is zero thrills, tension or any extreme emotion tied to this for the average viewer.

Its draw will be on those who have an interest in surf (although there are few actual surfing scenes) or those looking for 90s UK nostalgia.

However one thing lacking on the nostalgia part is the music, partly due to the producers seemingly having an issue with electronic dance music, despite there being a rave scene.

Going by this movie we should all apparently be listening to northern soul, which was a trend in the UK in the 60s. It was basically a UK audience who bought up soul music which wasnt actually good enough for the American audience. Their fans (and this producer) seem to think its "authentic" and nothing to do with fashion, despite fashion being a huge part of it and the scene being built on low quality music....

The scene in the dancehall where a music producer is "confronted" for the "crime" of sampling feels inauthentic and completely out of place. The fact is many artists have benefitted from being sampled so this makes zero sense.

The other ironic part is the movies attitude towards drugs, as if northern soul dances weren't fuelled by amphetamines.

Its basically a UK melodrama about a man reaching 30 and having to decide over his surfing lifestyle and growing up.

The main actor isn't even on the poster, he has been replaced by Ewan McGregor who is a side character, possibly due to his success in Trainspotting. A very young Zeta-Jones is the main female.

Its nothing to get excited about but perfectly fine if you dont want to be too stressed out, although the heavily branded 90s surf/skate wear you may find distressing as a reminder of just how bad some of the clothing was back then.

Never growing up, and loving surfing, that's the theme at The Cornish Coast for a group of guys, who love to surf.

Definitely worth a look, I wasn't sure it was my kind of movie, but I really enjoyed it. It definitely has a few laughs, but it brings the 90's back to life in vivid fashion, the clothes, haircuts and sounds.

It looks absolutely gorgeous, The Cornish Coast, the insanely beautiful Catherine Jones, fans of hers will enjoy, and of course a rugged looking Sean Pertwee.

The best thing here for me is the music, it's like a playlist of Great British tracks, the music is off the scale.

Worth your time, 7/10.

I absolutely adore Catherine Zeta-Jones, and it was great to see an early performance of hers. However, besides that and the fact that the actor playing JC is quite good-looking, this movie has nothing going for it. None of the scenes feel longer than about two minutes, so it's hard to follow any plot lines. And the plot lines aren't terribly interesting, anyway...when I wasn't confused by the vague and random plot turns, I was bored. The humor is, for the most part, bizarre or just forced. I suppose the movie might be of greater interest to those who care about surfing. Overall, I would only recommend this to die-hard Zeta-Jones (or Ewan McGregor) fans who want to experience her/his whole filmography.

As she often does, my wife walked away from this movie after 10 minutes. But I really enjoyed it, rate it "7" of "10". Without Zeta-Jones I probably would have given it a "5"! I saw the DVD version. Unfortunately it is only pro-logic, not Digital Dolby, but the soundtrack was pretty good. And the picture is wonderful, colorful, sharp.

British movies and British actors in them tend to be a bit "quirky", and this one is no exception. But, if you generally like British modest-budget movies, which I do, you'll like this one. The theme is "surfing" but the movie is really about the 4 male friends from high school, and the relationships they all have as they approach mid-life (their 30s).

This movie is just good entertainment, but worth the hour and a half.