Review of The Beach (2000) by Appu B — 02 Oct 2010

A traveller in Thailand encounters a manic stranger who entrusts him with a map to a secret island paradise. The Beach feels very much like a hangover from the 90s in that it makes the same mistakes many films of that particular decade made; namely it mistakenly assumes that a few smug new age platitudes and pop music are a substitute to depth of plot or characterisation.

Much of the film feels like a cross between a travelogue and an australian soap opera as a bunch of insufferably self obsessed hedonists play at Robinson Crusoe, shag and play beach sports. I can't really fault DiCaprio's performance as he does the best he can with what he's got to work with but all of the characters are so difficult to care about that I just never gave a crap.

It got a bit more interesting towards the end when Leo goes batshit but it's marred by some horrible directorial gimmicks (the videogame sequence being the worst offender) and it just takes an eternity to get to the meaty stuff which is over with far too quickly.

It has some very nice scenery and Robert Carlyle puts in a memorable cameo but otherwise it's about as exciting as a two hour long tourist infomercial.