Rating: 
Summary: Read the book instead
Review: The Beach tried its best to be good, but didn't really live up to its potential. So many things could have been done to make it a good movie, but the need for sex overcame the want for quality. This movie is supposed to be about society and Paradise and things like that, but in reality it is an action flick with sex. Because we need sex, of course; "we" meaning the general public. What bothers me is not the fact there is sex, but the fact that the book The Beach had none whatsoever. If the movie had been kept closer to the book's story, it would have been so much better. Mind you, I'm not someone who bashes movies with sex in them. I just wish that the movie was more like the book in that respect. It's just wrong, frankly.Anyhoo, I watched this movie only because I read the book in English class this year. It was a very good book, and I recommend it to anyone who either liked the movie, or enjoys fast-paced books with great character development and underlying meanings. However, I liked the happy ending of the movie. Not as good as the book's ending, but happy. I like happy endings. :) P.S.
I predict that at least 4 people will find this review unhelpful. ;)
Rating: 
Summary: Teen heart throb beached!
Review: The Beach failed to entertain Leonardo DiCaprio's legion of teenaged girl fans in America and was quickly washed away at the boxoffice. It did much better overseas where audiences are less inclined to need all their heroes to drip with testosterone. In fact, it's a pretty fair adventure, although it changes the plot of the Alex Garland novel for some rather obvious and silly reasons. We'll get to that later. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Richard, a bright, alienated young America who is bumming around Southeast Asia. He's just one of thousands of mostly European backpackers who go to the region every year seeking the exotic and the pleasurable. In Bangkok, Thailand, he checks into a cheap hotel made out of plywood and plastic paneling. He becomes friendly with a French couple, Francoise and Etienne [Virginia Ledoyen and Guilbume Caret]. He also encounters an insane Scotsman called Daffy [Robert Carlyle] who babbles on about a beautiful island beach hidden away from the tourists. The next morning Richard goes out for breakfast, and when he returns there is a map to the island on his door. He checks on Daffy and discovers to his horror that the man has committed suicide. After dealing with the Thai police, he talks Francoise and Etienne into going with him to find the island. Eventually, they find it. The beach really exists and is breathtakingly beautiful. It is populated by a group of young dropouts who think they have found heaven. The rest of the island, though, is peopled with a native group that farms marijuana. They have allowed the settlers to remain, but patrol their own areas with automatic rifles, which they do not hesitate to use. This island is a false paradise. I think the main theme is that paradise on earth is not a place. The movie makes a jarring shift midway through. Much of the first half is like a TV travelog or something out of MTV's Road Rules episodes - beautiful people having a beautiful time. Then Richard begins to go mad. After that, it becomes a sort of Lord of the Flies meets Heart of Darkness for Generation X. It may be this abrupt turn that confused audiences. What is odd is that the movie offers no plausible explanation for Richard's behavior, even though a truly scary scene in the book gives him reason. Now, about those plot changes. I always understand when a movie cuts parts of a book because of running time or changes things because they wouldn't work on film. In this case, however, it's all about Leo D. Every major plot change seems calculated to convince everyone that the androgynous star is as straight as an arrow. Specifically, Richard woos Francoise away from Etienne early in the movie. In the book, he lusts after her, but is civilized enough to attempt not to act on it. In the movie he has a one night stand with the woman, Sal, who is the island's leader. In the novel they were very wary of each other. The idea never comes up. DiCaprio is one of our great actors, but like others, such as Edward Norton and Johnny Depp, he is one of a kind. He is not now nor ever will be nor ever should be a Harrison Ford or Sean Connery. I suspect some studio execs had a hand in these plot changes. In doing so, they did neither the actor nor the audience any favors. It's all part of the 'dumbing down' process, as though they felt most of us spend our time obsessing over what stars do when they are off work.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Not so Great Movie
Review: I highly recommend reading the original book "The Beach" by Alex Garland. It is a wonderful book and definitely one of the best books of a new generation of younger writers. The movie, however, was disappointing. Many of the best ideas, concepts, and characters from the book were either left out or cheapened by the adaptation to film. However, I felt the locations were fantastic and many of the characters were cast very, very well. My recommendation? Skip the movie and read the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Smells Like Smog
Review: GAG. If I ever need an acute bout of nausea, I'll watch this horrendously conceived version of an otherwise farily well written story. The superficiality of this movie is offensive and embarassing, as is the stereotyped, one-dimentional character development. People often comment on how "beautiful" the beaches in this movie are. Sadly, by the time all was said and done, these ignorant tinseltown chumps had destroyed the beaches of one of Thailand's most beautiful islands, Koh Phi-Phi. Hollywood does it again. Forget this junk. Read the book or get another movie instead. Better yet, get on a plane to Bangkok and apolgize to the Thais themselves for your fellow Americans' embasrassing behavior.
Rating:
Summary: really bad movie
Review: My teenage daughters forced me to take them to this film. They are really fond of DiCaprio and I have seen him do some excellent acting in other films. I was also happy to hear that Tilda Swinton was in this film. She was stupendous in Orlando and in my opinion, cheated out of a rightful Oscar. I was shocked at how terrible this film was. The story was insane. A bunch of over-sexed teenagers end up in Thailand to get free pot and to live on a commune-style island... all the while the pot-growers on the other side of the island let them be. This is one extremely stupid movie. My girls cooed over DiCaprio, but half way through the film I saw they were both yawning and looking as annoyed as I was. On the drive home, they admitted that they were really disappointed. We agreed that the acting was good, but the story was just awful. As a father, I would have been happier if this movie, made to attract a teen audience, had a less vivid and graphic (and quite disgusting, I might add) sex scene. Shame on the makers of this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Lord of the Flies revisited?
Review: The Beach takes its theme from Lord of the Flies; that Man, far from being a "noble savage", unfailingly reverts to his base nature even when placed in a seeming paradise far from the evils of the modern world. And it takes a bit of its basic premise from that book also--relative youngsters marooned (this time through their own decision and not by fate) on a tropical paradise come through adversity almost to the point of self-destruction but are eventually saved. And here, I think, is where the movie most lets the viewer down--in the necessity of an uplifting ending, the protagonist Richard's (played by DiCaprio) closing words demonstrate that he missed the point entirely. I have to admit that those words do seem in keeping with Richards muddled mindset throughout--he's definitely more an irritating grain of sand with potential than a polished pearl! But that the viewer is left with this pollyanna perception almost invalidates the whole thing. The other problem with The Beach is the occasional stylistic twist. At one point Richard begins to hallucinate due to isolation, stress, lack of food, and probably odd chemicals in the caterpillars he snacks on. We get several fantasy sequences, in the most extreme of which he envisions himself in a video game. Certain viewers, myself included, will find this just too far removed from the grim reality of the story and inadvertently comical. Others, undoubtedly, will find it bold directing. The other movie The Beach alludes to is Apocalypse Now, with DiCaprio compressing the roles of Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando into a single character--a man in search of himself who eventually becomes totally debased. In The Beach, the horror is graphic--a fair amount of gore from which the camera doesn't always shy. The special effects of shark bite wounds are astoundingly and grotesquely realistic. I've not read the novel upon which this movie was based, so I can't speak to its faithfulness. But on its own the movie was certainly intriguing and worth viewing. Surely some of the bad press the movie got was due to the critics' expectations being different than what the director and DiCaprio delivered. Where some fans hoped for something similar to Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, and The Man in the Iron Mask, DiCaprio sought out The Beach to purposely distance himself from those roles. The Beach may not be as innovative and unusual as What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but it is somewhat similar to The Basketball Diaries. Fans of the romantic DiCaprio should probably give this one a miss, unless they really want to see those scenes in which he appears bare-chested. My wife, not particularly a DiCaprio fan, gives the film only three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Not as Great as it Should have been but It`s Well Made.
Review: When a young man (Leonardo DiCarpio) decided to Travel around the World, in the Search of Adventure. When he meets a Strange Mystery Man (Robert Carlyle), who tells him about a Great Treasure abandon all sense of Humanity and Basic Decency, becoming Pananoid to a Degree of Visual Hell. Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) made a Unique film, which have should have been Better. Filmed Beautifully by Darius Khondji that keeps your attention. Director:Boyle keeps the viewers watching the film, Visual Style and Energy. Based on a Novel by Alex Garland (28 Days Later) from a Screenplay by John Hodge. This was a Box Office disappointment but it become a Cult Classic. DVD has an strong anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) transfer and an fine Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD Extras are:An running Commentary Track by Boyle, Deleted Scenes With/Without Commentary and a Alternate Ending and More Extras. This Film is Not for All Tastes. Super 35. Grade:B+.
Rating: 
Summary: What's wrong with the film? It's simply great.
Review: Having travelled over 15 countries in my last 4 years, I find this film very well made. I doubt people who don't travel as backpackers will have much positive feeling towards this film. Really, a paradise can exist. If you ask me is there a paradise in Malawi, I will tell you yes and I can show you how to get there. And such paradise isn't necessary the most popular tourism location - it doesn't mean it's not a paradise. Often, paradise really gets over developed, over populated or poluted, when it becomes widely known. And it'll finally become not a paradise. And if you know Thailand and any other South East Asian countries well, you'll know that, indeed, where the selected group grows "Mad Weeds" can really be secretive and paradise-like. I think everyone in the film has performed so well. I could see a list of very unique and true to life travellers' characters well represented in the film. As well, there is a good mixture of people from different countries. It is very interesting when I learned that one of the founders of the paradise community killed himself because he did not like the paradise for some reason. Is it possible? Yes. How would someone deal with it? I don't know. I am not sure if there is anywhere else you'd rather go if you don't even like paradise. I really think it's a movie well made.
From a beach lover and frequent traveller.
Rating:
Summary: [Spoiler] Fascistoid
Review: The movie starts OK: the beach and everything, but the end only shows that an ecologycal-hippie-pot consumer-free love based community leads itself destruction and moral decay. Everybody knows that it isn't so: our fathers were hippies in the 60s and they are what they are now, no matter how much pot they smoked, how much sex they had or how much love to ecology they have. The ending recalls George Orwell's 1984: an utopia is only safe in a computer's screen.
Rating:
Summary: Great story. Lousy movie.
Review: The story is a highly promising. Adventure-prone young man seeks adventure in Thailand, finds it but it all goes pear-shaped on him. He ends up on a paradise island hippie commune made up of other beautiful young people with exotic European accents and simply bulging with street-cred. But there's trouble in paradise as good old human nature, here symbolised by sex, intrigue and corruption rears its ugly head. Sounds great, doesn't it?
I'm told the book is a fantastic read. Which may explain why this movie is unforgivably cheesy adaptation, with di Caprio turning in a flat, uninspred performnace. Unsatisfying and disappointing.
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