BLUE CRUSH
Big waves, hot bodies, and serious content concerns.
Should You Watch It?
BLUE CRUSH is one of the better summer teen movies to reach the screen, with vivid colors, beautiful scenery, strong surfing imagery, and a good, realistic ending. Its story also gives weight to responsibility, friendship, facing fear, and the struggle to find one’s identity.
But this is not a family movie. The female characters swear frequently, and the film includes images of implied fornication, sexual innuendo, nudity, used condoms, alcohol, smoking, substance misuse, and other mature material. The content is why a visually pleasant and engaging film earns a −2 Family Content rating.
If you are a discerning adult who can weigh those concerns, BLUE CRUSH may be worth watching. For children and young teens, choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESAnne Marie is training for a major surf contest on Oahu while caring for her younger sister and trying to find her own identity. Haunted by a near-fatal drowning accident at the same stretch of beach, she struggles to train for the larger waves she must face.
When she meets Matt, a vacationing NFL quarterback who wants surf lessons, romance enters her already complicated life. Anne Marie must decide whether to face her fears or run from them.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means BLUE CRUSH is a good but imperfect summer movie. The film uses vivid colors and beautiful scenery to create a visually pleasant backdrop, offering a welcome break from the gray tones and filters common in many films.
The story unfolds slowly, but it reaches a good and realistic ending. The surfing and setting provide plenty of visual appeal, while the story’s emotional center comes from Anne Marie’s responsibilities, relationships, and struggle with fear. The frequent obscenities keep the movie from reaching a broader audience.
The Worldview
BLUE CRUSH presents a romantic worldview in which the characters see themselves as basically good people, while their problems are shaped by culture and circumstance. The film contains strong undercurrents of friendship, but the girls also largely do what they want, with surfing serving as their primary bond. Its humanist elements emphasize characters relying on themselves rather than God or a larger moral authority.
The film does affirm responsibility, perseverance, friendship, and the idea that young women do not need to fit a narrow beauty standard to be happy or accepted. Its women are portrayed as more realistically athletic than stereotypical models, while the women with the “Baywatch” look are portrayed as shallow and mean. Those choices offer a positive counterpoint to appearance-based insecurity.
Still, the film includes hedonistic behavior, including grinding at a party and substance misuse. Its characters’ moral decisions are framed primarily through personal identity, relationships, and circumstances rather than accountability before God.
The film’s deepest longing is for identity and acceptance. Scripture grounds that worth more securely: “So God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Strong Romantic worldview where everyone is basically a “good person” and are a product of the culture, humanist elements where characters rely only on themselves for help, with hedonistic elements such as grinding at a party and substance misuse; 40 obscenities (mostly sh-!), 11 profanities, a handful of vulgarities, with a lot of heated arguments among the characters, man flips the middle finger, a couple shots of vomit and excrement; violence is mostly surfers being beaten up by the waves, with minimal wounds shown, girl remembers near drowning experience, one fist fight among surfers, and one fight with older and younger sister; scene of implied fornication, with a fair amount of innuendo and images of used condom that sticks to girl’s shoe; rear female nudity with shower scene (with strategically placed fog), one near shot of female private parts with camera shot under bathroom stall (but nothing explicit), upper male nudity, and bikini clad women; alcohol use and smoking at a wild party; and, lying and discrimination of island natives toward mainlanders.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Anne Marie’s fear comes from a near-fatal experience, but she must decide whether to face it or run from it. What does courage look like when fear remains?
Joshua 1:9 · Psalm 56:3Anne Marie carries responsibility for her younger sister while still trying to discover who she is. How can responsibility shape identity without becoming the whole of a person’s identity?
Galatians 6:5 · Ephesians 2:10The film suggests that people are shaped by culture and circumstance. How does Scripture balance those influences with personal responsibility before God?
Romans 12:2 · 2 Corinthians 5:10The characters’ friendships are connected by their shared love of surfing. What makes a friendship strong when interests or circumstances change?
Proverbs 17:17 · Ecclesiastes 4:9–10The Final Word
BLUE CRUSH is a colorful, engaging surf movie with a good and realistic ending. But its strong language and mature sexual content make it unsuitable for children and young teens. Discerning adults may find it worth watching; families should choose something else. WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. Consider these alternatives:
