Long before there was a
Blue Crush, there was
North Shore. Both films have basically the same plot: Surfer wants to ride the big waves of Pipeline / Boy meets Girl / Surfing Contest / Does not win / Gets the respect of the locals. It doesn't get any more basic than that. There are of course some subtle differences between the two. How best to describe
North Shore then? It's a cross between
Big Wednesday and
The Karate Kid. Actually, there really isn't any other surfing movie to compare it to except
Blue Crush which came 15 years after the fact. But
North Shore does take a page out of
The Karate Kid by having newcomer
Rick Kane (Matt Adler) learning the ropes of surfing by the Islands most respected board-shaper
Chandler (Gregory Harrison).
To say that his "teaching" methods is laugh-out funny is an understatement. Look, this movie is covered in so much cheese that I would require you to have nachos on hand when watching it. Hell, just look at the DVD cover. Haha. And the music isn't anything memorable either, but it serves its purpose for what it is for the time it came out. I actually found myself liking a lot of the songs, even though to this day I don't have a clue who they are with the exception of
Pseudo Echo's Funky Town.
As cheesy as this one is, I still find myself liking the movie, inspite of it's bad acting. But it does boast the gorgeous
Nia Peeples who I still have a crush on to this day. Also, the standout character in
North Shore is
Turtle as played by
John Philbin. This is definitely a
Rent.