Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		1.5

Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Hang zero.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 6, 2011

Ah, for the carefree, innocent days of Beach Blanket Bingo or even Gidget. You know, those sun drenched movies (no one would even go so far as to call them “films”) where teenage shenanigans met with the latest dance craze, forgettable romances and usually lamentable music. But you know one thing that films—er, movies like Beach Blanket Bingo and Gidget didn’t have? Delusions of grandeur, that’s what. These small scale efforts knew exactly what they wanted to be. In Gidget’s case, it was a teen coming of age story, wrapped up with some romance and cast amid the waves and sand. The whole Frankie and Annette series didn’t even have those limited ambitions. The Avalon and Funicello franchise wasn’t about much else than mindless fun, a sort of filmic wallpaper that usually played in drive-ins (remember those?) where the target audience probably wasn’t paying that much attention to the movie in the first place, if you catch my drift. The first Blue Crush movie had at least the ostensibly noble aim (stop laughing) of highlighting the need for something akin to professional women’s competitive surfing. If it did so in a melodramatic and turgid dramatic environment, there was at least that saving grace. But what does Blue Crush 2 really have to offer? Well, there are bounteous babes in bikinis, that’s certainly a major plus. And there’s some absolutely fantastic footage of surfers, male and female, including some up close and personal shots inside the tube that defy description. The South African setting of Blue Crush 2 also provides the film (whoops, movie) with a spectacularly beautiful locale. And, ladies and gents, that’s about it. This is the silliest, most predictable, dramatically inert and lifeless piece of crap, blue or otherwise, that has come down the pike in quite some time.

You know you’re in for a long haul, despite this film’s roughly two hour running length, when you hear yourself actually sighing out loud within moments of it starting up amid supposed home movies where our heroine Dana (Sasha Jackson) watches idyllic footage of her long dead mother hanging ten. Dana has a strained relationship with a über-rich Los Angeles father (Gideon Emory, who looks barely old enough to be Dana’s brother, let alone her father), and decides on a lark to travel to her mother’s native country of South Africa in order to visit a number of surf sites her Mom had written about in a journal before she passed away from cancer.

The bulk of Blue Crush 2, then, ultimately turns into a sort of road movie where Sasha and her new best friend Pushy (Elizabeth Mathis), a native South African surfer Dana meets on a bus. Almost right off the bat, Pushy and Dana deal with the scornful attitude of the reigning Queen of what is trumped up as an actual competitive event, when it in fact serves as little more than a product placement tour de force for women’s sporting gear enterprise Roxy. That Queen is named Tara (Sharni Vinson), and, boy, is Dana ever surprised when Pushy takes Dana back to her beach bum hideout and finds out Tara lives there too. I’m sure your jaw is agape.

At the beach bum hideout, Dana is introduced to a whole slew of kids out to find themselves, which they do by getting really drunk and playing limbo to oppressively loud reggae music. Dana is immediately torn—torn, I tell you—between two muscular hunks, Grant (Chris Fisher), a beach bar owner and womanizer whom Dana had actually met on the flight over to South Africa (of course, South Africa being such a small place and all), and Tim (Ben Milliken), a super-nice guy who works in an animal reserve saving endangered elephants. I mean, really. Anyway, three guesses which one Dana ends up with, but only after making the wrong choice first. After all, we have two hours to kill, unless you end up killing yourself just to put yourself out of misery.

Soon Dana and Pushy are out retracing Dana’s Mother’s footsteps (and/or surf-steps) on a cross country trip which takes them to a variety of really gorgeous locations. We have the twin love stories playing out, as well as another subplot of Pushy trying to win a spot on the “Roxy” team, supposedly against Tara’s wishes. And, oh, lest I forget, Dana has also been robbed and must—must, I tell you—reclaim her Mother’s priceless carved Tiki head. No, I’m not making it up, I swear to you.

This film is so completely predictable I was literally calling out what was going to happen next from approximately two minutes into this mess, something I was able to do until the final credits rolled. This is paint by numbers screenwriting of the saddest and most lamentable kind, actually appalling, really. There are only two saving graces (not counting the bounteous babes in bikinis) to Blue Crush 2. The location footage, including of course the spectacular surfing sequences, is uniformly outstanding and gives the movie some real visual sweep. In fact, there are some shots in this movie which are jaw droppingly beautiful. The other thing, which is actually kind of funny, only becomes obvious if you watch some of the featurettes and listen to the commentary. Virtually ever actor in this film is doing a dialect directly opposite to their native idiolect. The Australians are doing American accents, the Americans are doing South African accents, it’s truly astounding. That so much time should have been spent perfecting pretty nice sounding accents is actually laugh out loud hilarious when most of the rest of this movie is such a bedraggled catastrophe.

Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blue Crush 2 is the rare Universal Blu-ray release which sports a VC-1 (as opposed to an AVC) encode, in 1080p and 1.78:1. Perhaps the film's European (German) genesis has something to do with this idiosyncrasy, but the results are quite pleasing, despite a certain boorish elitism some people have towards VC-1. The film is brilliantly sharp and features gorgeous depth of field. Contrast is intentionally boosted sometimes, evidently to up the "sun dappled" ambience of the settings, but even in these artificially filtered moments, colors are precise and fine detail is readily apparent. In fact the palette here is one of the film's chief attractions. Gorgeous teals, blues and greens fill the screen and some of the South African location shots are as sumptuous as could be imagined. There were one or two very brief moments of shimmer and aliasing, strangely never with the sprays of water which are a frequent feature of the film, but more usually with aerial shots of foliage and rock formations.

Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

It may not have the quaint appeal of Frankie and Annette, but Blue Crush 2's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is filled to the brim with pulsating rock, pop and reggae beats which play virtually nonstop through the movie, giving abundant opportunity for the surrounds and especially the subwoofer to come into play. But immersion (a more accurate than usual term in this case) is really excellent in most of Blue Crush 2, especially in the surfing sequences, where the roar of the ocean and being inside the tube is incredibly well represented through very artful mixing and utilization of the surround channels. Even some of the open air beach scenes teem with excellent surround activity, giving a nice spacious feel to the soundscape. Fidelity is excellent, if perhaps a bit bass heavy for some tastes.

Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alternate Opening (HD; 3:59) features more home movies of Dana and her Mom and then segues into a scene with her father and Grandmother discussing her impending transition to Cornell.
• Deleted Scenes with Introduction by Director Mike Elliott (HD; 35:00). This features a number of expendable sequences, albeit some with great location footage. However, the killer moment of this supplement is when director Elliott explains to us what "deleted scenes" means. Thanks, Mike.
• Gag Reel (HD; 2:59) if you think the director pointing to a crew member's butt crack is comedy gold, this extra's for you.
• The Hunt for Waves (HD; 7:42) is a sort of proto-music video, offering nice footage of wildlife, and then a series of surfing shots (including some split screen stuff) playing to music.
• The Making of Blue Crush 2 (HD; 12:24) has the cast and crew talking about the differences between the two Blue Crush films, their characters and the basic storyline. Pretty standard stuff.
• Surf Safari! Filming in South Africa (HD; 6:19) has the cast and crew talking about the "rigors" (no, really) of filming in the gorgeous locations featured in the film.
• Ripping It! Shooting the Surf Scenes (HD; 6:51) is actually kind of interesting, showing several scenes being shot, and discussing how editing was done to blend the actors with their surfing stunt doubles.
• Roxy (HD; 2:34). Just in case you thought all that product placement was a coincidence, here's a two and a half minute music video honoring the clothing line.
• Feature Commentary with Director Mike Elliott, Associate Producer Greg Holstein and cast members Sasha Jackson, Elizabeth Mathis and Rodger Halston. This is an okay outing, not overly informative, but filled with good natured joking and a quasi-party atmosphere. It's fun to hear the actors speaking with their native accents, but otherwise this a fairly useless commentary.
• Dbox and BD-Live Enabled

Blue Crush 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you've ever wondered about the South African surfing scene, you'll at least be able to see some admittedly stupendous footage of fantastically beautiful sites and incredibly gifted surfers sprinkled throughout Blue Crush 2. The problem is you have to sit through all the other dramatic idiocy to see those sequences. The choice is yours.