A terrible adaptation of a great book.

Rating: 2/10 (19 July 2010)

Everyone knows that the book is always better than the movie (there are exceptions...Fight Club comes to mind). The Beach is the BEST example of how Hollywood royally screws up a fantastic story.
Alex Garland's late 90s novel so perfectly captured the zeitgeist of 20-somethings looking for some adventure in their lives, but only finding the same kind of drama and social pressures that drove them to globe trot in the first place. The Beach is a very sure-handedly written work, both literate and full of action. I was a 20-something myself when I read it, just before I headed to Southeast Asia for a backpacking adventure of my own. In my circle of friends, everyone seemed to have read the book; my copy is long lost, one friend borrowed mine and never gave it back! Fast forward a few years and here comes Danny Boyle's adaptation. I can't decide if Leo DiCaprio was bad casting, but he's a decent actor anyway. Boyle is a very overrated director, but he manages to adapt some moments from the novel pretty well on screen--the fluorescent algae swim at night, the German who gets bit by a shark.
Slowly but surely, though, it's clear that the SCRIPT ADAPTATION for this film is God awful. Just terrible. And Alex Garland helped out with it, which I can't wrap my head around at all. Just to pick a few examples, Sal's boyfriend Bugs is deleted from the movie, so Leo has an affair with her (!). The tension between Richard and Bugs was a crucial part of the novel. And the book's downright apocalyptic finale is done in shorthand for the movie, and it's melodramatic and absurd; it's like a junior high school play.
The movie starts out fine, but by the end I almost threw my TV out the window. Terrible, terrible adaptation.
If you haven't seen the movie OR read the book, read carefully: do NOT watch the movie, forget it exists. I suppose if you will never read the book, the movie might be OK, but if you read the book first, the movie will disappoint. READ THE BOOK INSTEAD.