Blue Juice

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The main actor isn't even on the poster, he has been replaced by Ewan McGregor who is a side character, possibly due to his success in Trainspotting.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

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.

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.

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.