Blue Crush

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

Blue Crush seemed destined for greatness with its young, nubile girls prancing around in string bikinis, all the while trying to tackle big, crashing waves. Inexplicably, they somehow manage to screw up that formula, and, in turn, we get a coming-of-age tale about a girl trying to get over her fears of big waves to make a better life for herself as a professional surfer. So to summarize, this is a surfer movie focusing on a girl afraid to surf. As Marge Simpson would say, Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmm…

Yes, the girls of Blue Crush spend almost the entire movie in bikinis, but for three young chicks without an authority figure in sight, they’re way too tame. Blame that on our central heroine and resident tightwad, Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth), who’s plagued throughout the movie by reoccuring nightmares and flashbacks of a surfing accident from her childhood. On top of trying to save herself and her friends from their respective broken homes, she also dedicates a lot of her time to keeping her younger sister in school—even though Anne Marie didn’t make it to college herself. All of these admirable priorities take a back seat when Anne meets a vacationing professional quarterback—a miscast twerp whose size is more appropriate for the WNBA—and she’s swept off her feet. For the remainder of the movie, friends on all sides get involved in helping Anne Marie overcome her surfing fears, but the surfers’ and jocks’ abandonment of their initial beef with each other is as ridiculous a premise as it is worthless. We’re stuck watching her inner demons wage battle, “serious” scenes that deliver some unintentionally laugh-out-loud dialogue, and thoroughly unbelievable characters. Each surf scene brings the promise of Anne Marie finally breaking through her fears and conquering the big wave—and almost every time, the results are disappointing. Unless you’re a surfer-movie buff afraid of surfer movies, paddle past this wipeout. (Zing! Feel that, Blue Crush!)

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