Blue Crush

Starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Sanoe Lake, Mika Boorem, Faizon Love
Based on the magazine article "Surf Girls of Maui" by Susan Orlean; Story by Lizzie Weiss;
Screenplay by Lizzie Weiss & John Stockwell
Directed by John Stockwell
website: www.blue-crush.com

IN SHORT: Babes in bikinis and big blue waves. Man Show heaven or subtle, deeply leveled philosophical statement? You decide... though we can sum it up in two unfortunate words: Bo-Ring. [Rated PG-13 for sexual content, teen partying, language and a fight. 103 minutes]

Hawaii is a great place to party. Next time you go, lug along a movie camera. Before you leave, get someone to write two scenes which you can shoot and insert into your party footage and then you might have a wee bit more than what passes for the professionally made movie called Blue Crush.

Sure, pro football players may rake in million dollar (or more) paychecks -- Minnesota Vikings QB Matt Tollman (Matthew Davis) is one of 'em -- but when push comes to shove, there isn't a 300 pound defensive linebacker alive that can wrap his buns around a poor, defenseless toilet. Literally. Thank Goodness the Hotel Lanakai on Oahu has strong stomached maid service to clean up after their $1000 a night Pro Bowl residents. Lanakai employee Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) is ready to turn in her name tag and co-worker buddy Lena (Sanoe Lake) is on the verge of tossing what cookies the aforementioned Pro Bowlers didn't toss the night before. Giving in to certain disgust is not in the cards for the blonder than either one of them Anne Marie Chadwick (Kate Bosworth), who's tough enough to face down 300 plus pounds of defensive linebacker, if need be. She's tough because she's got a rebellious fourteen year old sister Penny (Mika Boorem) flopping in the front seat of the family Corvair, since a never seen mom is off in Vegas partying with hubby number two. Penny swipes beer out of the fridge in the shotgun shack the girls share and parties with older local surfer dudes.

BUT WAIT! You horny poster drooling fanboys are demanding to know what about bikinis and surfboards??? Well, what about 'em? The only legit surfer of our trio of lovely stars is Sanoe Lake, and she spends less time in the Pacific than we do. Sure, upstanding and apologetic QB Matt hires (nudge nudge) Anne Marie to teach him to surf and, all feminist accusations of pimping aside, he is attracted to her (at least as long as he's in Hawaii). Besides, it would be cruel to be kind to Anne Marie and not pay the thousand bucks for lessons for the week, even if he only gets an hour or two each day in the pounding Pacific with her. Most of their time is spent under the 400 thread count per inch high quality sheets, which is not by any conception of the screenwriter/director to be considered pimping, even though bills for thousands of dollars in clothing in which he dolls up his latest flame will follow. Love is in bloom and, though there is barely a whit more story in this thing than there was in last week's XXX -- Blue Crush, though lacking in explosions, makes up for this failing with underwater injuries and a couple of bikinis. But not nearly enough of the latter.

What's worse is that, by our soundman's ears, almost none of what passes for the overriding story of a major competition on the island or any of the subcultural fights between the townies and the high priced imports was properly scripted until after it was filmed. It's hard enough to match dialog in the ocean, granted, but too many crowded scenes with all dialog dropped in afterwards is enough for us to recognize either a truly lousy recording job or, more in keeping with the utter lack of developed story in this mess, a lack of anything close to a reasonable script. Story enhancement done after the fact is not a reason to lay out ten bucks. (We didn't, but that comes with the job.)

Our press packet proudly proclaims that Blue Crush is "not your parent's idea of a surf movie." Damn straight. In our parent's surfing move there'd be more than what passes for surfing scenes in this flick. To be fair, there is mention of a surfing competition that nearly took Anne Marie's life three years earlier and which rears its ugly head for the Third Act of the flick. If you make it that far in the thing you may walk out with a confounded notion of what exactly "winning" means in the lingo of surfing competitions which, in your parent's day usually meant "winning". Linguistics aside, those obsolete surf movies would also feature killer, jaw dropping, death defying surf moves and a soundtrack that would, at minimum, enhance the story or offer up enough tunes to make a decent soundtrack CD.What you get in this loser is, gee, yet another set of rap "artists" -- we can't tell any of these thieves apart -- doing their best to obscure Bananarama's song "Cruel Summer". No comment.

If you're going to base a movie on a magazine article, hire someone with a bit more experience than a band of first timers to put the project together. Where the hell was uberboss Producer Brian Glazer while this production was being shot? Maui?

On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Ten Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Blue Crush, he would have paid . . .

$2.00

The lead actresses aside, Blue Crush is an utter failure that even the presence of The Man Show's Juggies as set decoration couldn't save. No, those Juggies aren't here. We're just making a blatant attempt to validate our creds with any thirteen year old that will dissmail us at our utter lack of ability to recognize a film masterpiece. There's always at least one.

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