Blue Juice

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.

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.

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.