Rating: 
Summary: Is this supposed to be an adaptation?
Review: This could have been an excellent movie, and perhaps if you haven't read the book it is. However, I read the book and expected a certain depth out of the characters and got nothing. This doesn't even follow the same plot as the book, if anything is a very, very loosely based adaptation of the book. I really can't understand why the writers changed it so much. The book does have a plot, and is more focused on the character of Clay than that of Julian. If anything, Julian is a sideshow in the book, yet he is in nearly every scene of the movie. The friendship between Blair, Clay, and Julian is highly embellished in this movie, wasn't such a focal point in the book. I am really disappointed, because there were so many good lines in the book (People are afraid to merge on the freeways in Los Angeles, for one) that should have made it to the screen. I'd recommend the book over the movie. Despite that, Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr. give outstanding performances. (What the heck happened to Andrew McCarthy, anyway?)
Rating: 
Summary: A Visually Compelling Tale Of Self Destruction.
Review: The most striking element that will "hook" you into watching this Bret Easton Ellis novel adaption of the same name, is the captivating visual beauty of the sets and cinematography. There are also two fine performances from two great actors. ................ Robert Downey Jr. gives a highly realistic performance as Julian, a hopeless junkie spiraling rapidly into oblivion before the eyes of his best friend Clay, played by Andrew McCarthy, and his on again, off again borderline coke-head gal-pal model, Blair(Jami Gertz). After Clay returns home from school, he's found that Julian has bedded his girl, and that being away has changed where he fits into this new drug addled scene. Despite this glaring breach of friendships, Clay plays the good egg who tries to keep both parties from self destruction. ............... The perpetually bug-eyed McCarthy seems strangely detached and unemotional in his role, while Jami Gertz, whom I usually find interesting, seems one dimensional and stiff. The award here goes to the talented Robert Downey Jr. as Julian. In this film he puts out a sincerely gut-wrenching performance. I once read that he said he WASN't acting, and that WAS how he is in real life. Is the fact or the fiction stranger? You must watch this and find out. ................ My favorite actor in general, as well as in this movie, is the great James Spader. I've seen just about everything he's ever been in, and he is no disappointment here. He turns in a fabulous performance as Trent, a ruthless drug dealer who has Julian under his thumb. When Julian gets in over his head and can't pay for his increasing habit, Trent is appropriately loathesome and cruel as he pimps Julian to earn his keep. The degradation he is put through escalates as Blair and Clay try to save him. James Spader and Robert Downey Jr. also worked beautifully together in the wonderful teen love story "Tuff Turf" in 1985. (See my review for more). ................. The other important reason to view this film, is that it's truly beautiful in the visual aspect. We see California wealth illustrated in moving pictures of bright technicolor. Vividly sparkling blue swimming pools, elegant mansions with colorful manicured gardens and sprawling lawns too. Everyone looks like a fashion model who just stepped out of a glossy magazine. The parties are replete with debauched debutantes in crystal mirrored bathrooms holding their coke-bloody noses. Watching this film is a guilty pleasure we must all experience vicariously. ................ Although it can be somewhat depressing at times, especially toward the end, I STILL enjoy it. The film also features a killer soundtrack that captures the era perfectly. These elements serve to elevate a minimally flawed script, and make this a visually arresting piece of gorgeous celluloid eye candy that needs to seen and sampled, even if you don't always like the taste of the rest.
Rating:
Summary: Partying in L.A.
Review: "Less Than Zero" is less than perfect. It tells the story of Julian (Robert Downey Jr.) as a hopeless drug addict (has an actor ever been more natural for the role?). Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz are his friends trying to help him. The movie is like a precurser to "Requiem For a Dream", but it is set to a different tune, specificly late 80s pop music like the Go-Gos and the Bangels (I miss those songs). They are in Los Angeles where drugs and partying are a lifestyle, not a recreation. Andrew McCarthy is the streight man, with no drug problem at all. And that is his problem, he is so streight laced that it seems a bit hard to believe that he can empathize with the Downey charactor. Gertz is the recreational user who can still quit if she wants. The problem with her is her decision to quit is a bit sudden and seems fake, only to serve the plot. Downey easily gives the best performance, it is intense and heartfelt and I believed it all the way. I guess he has a lot of experience to fall back on. It is a shame that Mr. Downey can't get his personal life in order, because he is such a talented actor, and I mean that genuinly. James Spader dose what he dose best; playing a creepy drug dealer who lets Downey get $50,000 in the hole before cutting him off. Then Spader has Downey do very dirty jobs to work off his debt. James Spader is just this side of evil, and he is pretty good, I just wish he had gone all the way with his dark character. What was wrong with the movie is two out off three leads; McCarthy and Gertz aren't bad (believe it or not), they just can't compete with Downey's much more challenging role. The movie's end is also a downer, if enevidable. The message of excesse is just too depressing, but powerful in it's own way.
Rating: 
Summary: What a crappy adaptation
Review: Don't watch this movie expecting to see Bret Easton Ellis's "Less than zero," it is far from that. The similarities between the book are as follows: They have the same names, and they do drugs (but not even as much as they do in the book). They leave out a lot of important stuff from the book. With this movie the notion that the movie is never as good as the book, is definately 100% true.
Had I not read the book prior to watching this movie, I may have liked it a little more. However the movie still isn't that great. My suggestion: pick up a copy of Bret Easton Ellis's version at a bookstore instead!
Rating:
Summary: Drug Habits=Downfall
Review: Less Than Zero is a very extraordinary movie. It encomposes everything a great movie has. Love, friendship, loyalty, distruction, yet it describes the real world as it is in it's harsh yet true reality. The movie begins like any other with the main characters. Clay (Andrew McCarthy), Julien (Robert Downey Jr.), and Roxie (Jamie Gertz) have just graduated from High School and are looking forward to the rest of their lives. Clay played by the very very talented Andrew McCarthy decides to go away for college and his girlfriend Roxie decided not to go with him at the last minute. Clay leaves her behind and Roxie and Julien enter a world of partying and drugs. While in school Clay recieves a phone call from Roxie her now ex- girlfriend. She's worried about Julien and is asking Clay for help. Clay loyal to his friends even though he caught his girlfriend (Roxie) sleeping with his best friend (Julien) goes back home during Christmas break to help his friend who is in deep trouble oweing incredible amounts of money to people who are out to get him. As the story unfolds thier friendship seems more real and true than in the beginning and demonstrates what friends are really for, despite Juliens drug habits and lifestyle he is being forced to live in. Not giving away the end the once relationship with Roxie and Clay blossoms once again. Julien's however lifestyle eventually left him behind with LESS THAN ZERO. I encouage everyone to watch this movie that is more real than any other movie dealing with drugs. Robert Downey Jr. Is excellent in this movie, giving a real perception of people on drugs, probably because of his own drug habits. He's great along with his co'stars, Andrew McCarthy and Jamie Gertz.
Rating:
Summary: Dancing With the Devil
Review: Less than Zero is a brilliant and engaging film, successfully lifting the skirt on 80's Southern California rich-kid party culture, during a time when all classes of society had convinced themselves that cocaine was a harmless recreational drug. Having been there and done that, is probably a prerequisite for getting this film. Robert Downey Jr.'s performance is stunning and scary. His later life encounters with the law, have shown that he knew the material on a very personal level. Jamie Gertz is perfect as a very sexy party queen, who just wants to have fun. James Spader is riveting as the entrepreneurial monster stalking the weak. Although not having produced much else of any note, the Bangles song, "Hazy Shade of Winter", which opens the movie, is an engaging theme for what is to follow. The movie follows Robert Downey Jr's characters' decent into a nightmare of addiction, desperation, near death, and a last minute save by his friends. It is the difinitive cautionary tale for the recreational drug user. There is pleasure in the dance with the Devil, but the Devil is leading, and there is only 1 possible destination, an abyss of madness and hopelessness. Hang on to your hopes my friend, you may not be able to re-build them.
Rating:
Summary: Poor adaptation of a so-so book
Review: What made Bret Easton Ellis's "Less Than Zero" an interesting, if less than compelling, read, was its portrayal of the anomie and emptiness of the Brat Pack of southern California -- rich, spoiled kids with too much money and nothing to do for it. Those young people, and their parents as well, didn't seem to care about anything but their next party or their next affair. But the film adaptation goes overboard in the opposite direction, trying to make Clay and his sometime girlfriend, Blair, look like paragons of caring in a non-caring world. As if the film directors realized that Clay in the book was too empty a personality to hold a movie together, they switched the focus to Julian, a peripheral player in the book; we're supposed to feel angst at watching him self-destruct through his addiction to drugs. Clay and Blair come across as even less interesting in the movie than they do in the book. Except for two excellent performances by Robert Downey as Julian and James Spader as a drug dealer who keeps Julian hooked, the actors are uninspired and the film script can only be described as banal. There should have been a preface tacked onto the beginning of the movie: Any resemblance between this film and the book it is based on is purely coincidental.
Rating: 
Summary: "less than zero"---that's how I rate it!
Review: Bret Easton Ellis' contemporary classic about the spiritual lacking of LA youth is transformed into the biggest "Just Say No" public service announcement. Characters are taken from the book while the plot is thrown away for an entirely different one!In this bastardization, Clay (Andrew McCarthy, in a very wooden performance) comes back from college to rekindle with his old girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) and together they try to save their drug-addict pal Julien (Robert Downey Jr.) from the evil dope dealer Rip (James Spader). First of all, in the movie Clay is all sqeaky clean and compassionate; in the book, he does coke and seems pretty detached. Second, in the the book Julien doesn't really appear until near the end. Third, the character of Rip is one of Clay's friends in the orignal novel! Did the director actually read the book? Only Downey's performace (perhaps a little too good?) makes this film worth seeing. Some movies are so bad that you can't help but liking them--this movie just blows!
Rating:
Summary: Poor adaptation of a so-so book
Review: What made Bret Easton Ellis's "Less Than Zero" an interesting, if less than compelling, read, was its portrayal of the anomie and emptiness of the Brat Pack of southern California -- rich, spoiled kids with too much money and nothing to do for it. Those young people, and their parents as well, didn't seem to care about anything but their next party or their next affair. But the film adaptation goes overboard in the opposite direction, trying to make Clay and his sometime girlfriend, Blair, look like paragons of caring in a non-caring world. As if the film directors realized that Clay in the book was too empty a personality to hold a movie together, they switched the focus to Julian, a peripheral player in the book; we're supposed to feel angst at watching him self-destruct through his addiction to drugs. Clay and Blair come across as even less interesting in the movie than they do in the book. Except for two excellent performances by Robert Downey as Julian and James Spader as a drug dealer who keeps Julian hooked, the actors are uninspired and the film script can only be described as banal. There should have been a preface tacked onto the beginning of the movie: Any resemblance between this film and the book it is based on is purely coincidental.
Rating:
Summary: After School Not-So-Special
Review: This movie took out everything that was urgent and disturbing about the book and then gloosed it over into a Paula Abdul video minus MC Skat Cat but adding a few drug scences. The acting is petrified wooden and the characters, who shouldn't have any morels like in the book, seem to be there to move the plot along instead of actually making you care about their fates. Read the book; it's much more nilhilistic.
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