Sports Movie Reviews

Not to be confused with the 2002 feature film of the same title, Blue Crush is billed as the original all-girl surfer's movie, and it's guaranteed to please devotees of the sport. It's a mixed blessing, however, because it assumes familiarity with the sport and its superstars, dispensing with any educational or historical detail that would appeal to neophytes. After all, how can this film be dedicated to Rell Sunn (the pioneer of female competitive surfing, who died in of breast cancer in 1998 at age 47) and fail to explore her illustrious career? This haphazard approach extends to profiles of the young women who regard Sunn as their hero; we learn little of their backgrounds and how they rose to prominence on the waves. Blue Crush works best as a globetrotting, music-video tour of surfdom's prime locations (Samoa, Hawaii, the Gold Coast, South Africa) hosted by the sport's most prominent competitors, including several (Rochelle Ballard, Megan Abubo, Sanoe Lake, Keala Kennelly, Kate Skarratt) who appeared in Universal's popular feature. It's a lot of fun, especially if you "hang ten" on a regular basis. --Jeff Shannon

This celebration of the 2000 Gravity Games, a collection of extreme sporting events held over nine days in Providence, Rhode Island, features coverage of the various competitions as well as bonus material, including outtakes and music videos. The freestyle motocross competition, in which intrepid riders perform tricks while making jumps on motorcycles, contains footage of Carey Hart breaking new ground by doing a back flip on a motorcycle, a feat that sends the crowd, and his fellow riders, into ecstasy. In the "bike dirt" competition, bicyclists tackle a course made of piles of earth, while in "bike vert" the riders perform stunts while riding up and down a large wooden u-shaped ramp. In the "skateboard vert" finals, some of the best skateboarders in the world rocket up the ramps, defying gravity while performing acrobatic stunts and then somehow skating back down.

Other events on this lengthy (nearly three-hour) DVD include inline skating (in "street" and "vert" styles), downhill skateboarding, wakeboarding (in which participants are towed behind speeding boats), and the ever-popular street luge. If some of the events seem bizarre, the coverage, which was originally shot for NBC, tends to provide a lot of background information as well as profiles of the participants. Lest anyone think this is solely a playground for totally rad dudes, there are some fearless female participants, and some of their exploits are featured in a bonus music video titled "Sick Chicks." --Robert J. McNamara