Una vida sin miedo

Saw this a few years ago and wasn't that impressed but on watching it again recently I find it's grown on me a lot. There's a lot of cliches in here, Cornwall is depicted as a crazy little world quite unlike anywhere else in Britain, where one train a week passes through town and everyone listens to hokey little local radio stations manned by oo-arr-ing rustic caricatures. There's some improbable stuff too, like a couple of people setting up a rural rave in about a day and getting a good few hundred attendees. Some of the characters are a little shallow (J.C.'s local surfing mates are little more than a chorus, pointing out what's going on now and then). The main group though, Pertwee's J.C., his girl CZJ and his old mates all have nice little problems that mess them around through the film and wind up getting resolved in quite sweet ways. Some moments of hilarity (fat, e'd-up Terry as the Silver Surfer is just cool, the rave bit in general is a fun scene), some (rather obvious) drama as J.C. and Chloe fall in and out of a relationship, building to a pacey, only slightly silly climax and a cute payoff with all the roles nicely shifted around. Doesn't really look that deeply at the issues it raises (the nature of being "grown up", responsibility, money vs soul, self respect and trustworthiness vs being cool and impressing your mates) but it's not really supposed to, it's just a bit of fluff without the serious surf ethos (or quality surf footage) of a Big Wednesday. It's very rooted in its time and place - the clothes, the hair, the vehicles are all right on the money, I almost feel like I really saw half these people in early nineties Cornwall, a nice feeling of familiarity which almost cancels out the patronising rural Cornish stereotypes scattered about. A bit of nostalgia for me for some happy times, and for others probably well worth watching if you don't take it too seriously, more an "aaaah" and a giggle than a "wow" though.

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.

It is customary, in a surf movie, to use footage from at least similar locations for a single ride. For a character sketch the characters were a little flat. For a bit of afternoon fluff the movie was a little inane. All in all quite a long vehicle for 5 minutes of laughter.

When should we grow up? In this movie some guys struggle with where they're going in life. Some haven't grown up and others may have grown up too fast. The passion these guys have for surfing and their immaturity is funny and entertaining. There's also an older wise wizard like person named 'Shape' who says some funny stuff and seems consumed by wisdom and a higher power. Some of his lines are my favorite. My friend bought the DVD from Walgreens one night; he told me he'd seen it there before and noticed something about the DVD cover. He explained how someone had made a DVD cover where they put Ewen McGregor's character next to the character Catherine Zeta-Jones plays. What's Funny is that Ewen Mcgregor didn't have short hair in the film like they portray him on the 'current' DVD cover. Ewen also didn't wear that tight black surf suit you see him wearing on the DVD cover; It was worn by the films main character 'J.C.;' This is probably because Ewen McGregor has become a more well-known actor than Sean Pertwee(JC)since Blue Juice was conceived.

My main reason for watching this film was Ewan MacGregor, me being a big fan. This is a pretty good story about a guy, dubbed J.C., not wanting to grow up, and then friends who try to encourage this. Being torn between public admiration and the commitment to his girlfriend, J.C. shows us a slice of his life.

Although this film ends with every main character having gone through some dramatic moral change, it is a very enjoyable film about friends and lifestyle. Recommended for the child in all of us who doesn't want to be an adult.