Blue Juice

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.

Even though I do live in Santa Cruz, I'm not particularly interested in surfing or surf movies, but still, I really enjoyed this one. The theme of being at a stage in life where you start wondering what you're going to do with it other than partying, what's really worthwhile in life, and what your values are struck a chord with me. It's a pretty universal one. I certainly know a lot of people that have dealt with it or are dealing with it right now.

The scenery of Cornwall was gorgeous. So was a very young looking Catherine Zeta Jones. The movie is beautifully shot. It was also very humorous, especially when you know lots of people like the characters in this film. It struck me as very true to life. Ewan McGregor really made me laugh as a drug dealing hippy dude who secretly just wants to be respected. I kept thinking "didn't I see that guy at a Dead show once?" The whole film kind of reminded me of Santa Cruz with an English accent.

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.

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.