disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (10 September 2002)

It´s always the same: You read a book, look forward to the screen adaption and you get disappointed to a certain degree. That´s ok, usually... but this one really p***es me off. If you have such a good artwork as "The Beach" by Alex Garland, then stick to it or leave it. The director didn´t stick to it and unfortunately didn´t leave it either. So the result is crap, every character has been changed in a way you get a different story at all. What has remained, is the names - not much. Just one thing to point out: The director leaves out Jed, one of the most important characters of Garland´s book and tries to disperse this person over a bunch of others. Those "others" again, then of course can´t stick to their original characters/plots and so on. The storyline ends in an ultimate mess, inescapable. I gave this movie 3 out of 10, but only because it might be bearable if you haven´t read the book. If you did, avoid the movie on all accounts.