Blue Crush

It might seem redundant to have DVD extras for a movie which is basically an excuse for pretty, pretty people in swimwear to romp about the waves. After all, many who'll buy it will either be there for the eye-candy, or hardcore surfers interested in studying the stunts - do either need the plot analysed?

But a surprisingly good collection of extras here actually fleshes out a thin movie and convinces you that it's something more than Baywatch-with-boards.

The "Making Of" feature is the usual promo flim flam with location interviews, full of people pontificating as if they're dissecting Shakespeare rather than a surf flick. It does reveal, however, that director John Stockwell is a real surfer dude himself - one look at him and you begin to understand that while it may have a storyline as thin as its heroines, the movie is not, at least, a cynical attempt to cash in on that culture, but has been made by people who know and love it.

There are two full-length commentaries, both good, and given that the film's dialogue is hokey stuff about following your dreams and being all you can be, it's actually more interesting to watch with the commentary track on. Stockwell's is a fascinating account of the technical difficulties in completing the film, which was made, he reveals, on a real surfers' beach, not in a tank, and he points out the many pro surfers in the cast and among the extras, usually people who just happened to be catching some waves that day. Using board-mounted cameras, swimming camera people and slow-mo techniques, the water shots are amazing and beautiful, with excellent picture quality rendering them sharply - the sound is also fine.

But it's not all serious. The deleted scenes - with commentary - include one titled Girls Stretch On A Beach, cut because "it turned into too much of a music video, focused on the girls' bodies", so that's one for the eye-candy crowd.

The other commentary, by the three young stars Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake, is like eavesdropping on a cheery pyjama party, as they giggle over the movie. "Man, they always have a scene like this, where you realise they're gonna end up together," they coo, when the love interests meet. "Why IS that?"

The featurettes concentrate on the water scenes, too. Filming Blue Crush showcases the cinematography and effects - there is some substitution of Bosworth for a real surfer. Riding The Waves is more surfing footage, while Wipeout is the obligatory, but fun, montage of, well, people falling off and getting swept under.

Other featurettes include one on the skateboard sequence - covering all the bases there -, the promo used to sell the idea to the studios, a babetastic Lenny Kravitz video and the trailer.

Those are all well and good, but two others are poor fillers: Surf Fashion is purely an ad for surf store Billabong, that also gets a cheesy product-placed cameo in the movie, with Sanoe Lake modelling bikinis, while an earnest employee shrills heartily. And mini-featurette on The Female Surfing Revolution could have been a chance to explore the film's roots in a magazine article by Susan Orlean, although it's probably based almost as loosely on her work as Adaptation was. Instead, it's a two-minute wasted opportunity of people saying that it's, like, cool that girls are surfing now, y'know? For sure!

Nevertheless, while they may not be enough to convince non-surfers, or bikini girl fans, to pick up the DVD, the extras are mostly a decent and well-thought out collection.