People are voting emotionally.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Thematically, "Blue Juice" has a lot in common with Barry Levinson's "Diner" from a few years earlier. Both are what might be called "delayed coming-of-age movies". Coming-of-age films traditionally focus upon characters in their teens, but for many young men their twenties, when they have finished full-time education, are starting out on their careers and are starting to think seriously about marriage and relationships with women, can be a time of even greater changes. Both "Blue Juice" and "Diner" focus upon a group of young men in their mid-to-late twenties who are confronted with the choice between growing up and accepting new responsibilities or keeping their old, carefree lifestyle centred around a group of like-minded friends. The main character of "Blue Juice" is JC. (We never learn what those initials stand for). Unusually for the hero of a British film, he is a keen surfer. Britain might not have the balmy climate of California, Australia or Hawaii, but we still have our own surf culture, mostly centred upon the South-West Peninsula, especially Cornwall. JC's great dream is to travel around the world surfing accompanied by his beautiful girlfriend Chloe, but she would prefer to settle down and buy a café. Things are complicated by the sudden arrival in Cornwall of musician Josh, drug-dealing Dean and Terry, three old friends from London, friends that Chloe does not really approve of. The plump, easy-going Terry has his own difficulties, which are the opposite of JC's problem- he is keen to marry and settle down, but his fiancée longs for a more adventurous life. One thing I didn't care for was the film's rather laissez-faire attitude to drugs and the implication that it was the drugs supplied by Dean which helped Terry become a more relaxed, open-minded character.Despite the similarity in theme, this film is not nearly as good as "Diner", which was better written and better acted and had more characters with whom the audience could identify. The first half of "Blue Juice" is particularly slow-moving and often baffling. There is an attempt to establish JC (played by Sean Pertwee, son of the former Doctor Who) as a sympathetic character, but it is never really explained why he should have become friends with unsympathetic losers like Josh and Dean. (Terry, although treated as something of a figure of fun, is rather more likeable). It is interesting to note that when the film was released on DVD in 2000 the cover showed not Pertwee, who plays the film's main character, but Ewan McGregor, who plays the smaller role of Dean. Mc Gregor was relatively unknown in 1995, but five years later he had become much better known than Pertwee. Neither, in fact, is particularly good here. The lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones, as Chloe, shows plenty of the charisma which made her one of Britain's hottest young actresses of the nineties, but few would class this as one of her best performances. Unless, of course, you judge the quality of an actress's performance by the amount of flesh she reveals. Rock fans might enjoy the music; there is a cameo appearance by rock star Edwin Starr, some of whose songs are featured on the soundtrack. The film brightens up and becomes more comprehensible in the second half, and I quite liked Peter Gunn's amusing contribution as the hapless Terry. Overall, however, I found this a rather mediocre production and one of the British film industry's weaker efforts. 5/10

I saw this dull waste of time on HBO's Comedy Channel, so I quite innocently and obviously assumed that this was a comedy. But there is absolutely nothing funny here. A good cast is basically wasted on a script that I could have written with my left butt-cheek - after it had been beaten senseless by 15th-century Inquisition torturers. The first half is particularly bad, as it has some of the most dull, pointless dialogue I've come across in a while, and zero comma zero plot to speak of. Just the fact that stars such as Ewan McGregor and Zeta-Jones are in this little movie and yet this film has less than 1000 votes on this site, should tell you everything. A couple of nice shots of waves hitting the cold British coast, but that's about it.This is the sort of movie that gets made just because the people who wrote it have good connections (family connections, preferably) and/or plenty of cash lying around.

A proper little gem of a feelgood movie, it has well wrought characters and great character portrayals. It also has production values way above it's budget. For what it is worth, England ( well, Cornwall really ! ) has never looked better, and, projected with a script of some worth, the whole movie adds up to a true mini classic. Each character's role is well explored and developed, and the level of each actor's ability is truly impressive. All it lacks is a first class music soundtrack, something which one is entitled to take for granted in a movie aimed at the market it does. A little more hot sex would not have gone amiss either !...especially with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the driving seat !

This film is not a great film. On some accounts, it's not even a good film, but it has a silliness to it that is kind of endearing. It's a grade more serious and better than Beach Blanket Bingo, but throughout it I was hoping they'd break into song or do the swim or have Frankie Avalon or Annette Funicello appear. It's a film I'd recommend for a party. It's not too "smart" but it's not too "stupid" and you could walk out of the room for a moment and still know what's going on. The film's story deals with J.C. who's having a heck of a time with facing the fact that he's thirty. His girlfriend Chloe is trying to tell him that you can be fun and carefree, but still be mature and responsible, but this message is somehow not hitting J.C. over the head. Trouble starts brewing more when J.C.'s best friend, Dean, comes into town. Dean needs to have J.C. surf a gigantic wave to make an interesting news story so he can get some money because Dean has had some financial and drug troubles. Then J.C. is faced with the problem of choosing between his friend or his girlfriend. I'd recommend it to someone who wants to watch a fun, silly movie.