Strong contender for the worst movie of the decade! (so far!)

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2001)

Believe me, even though I had heard nothing but negative feedback about 'The Beach' I watched it with an open mind. My taste is so at odds with 90% of the mainstream that if a movie receives such a violent reaction as this I generally regard that as a GOOD thing, thinking I might actually like it. My list of favourite movies of the last ten years features many more so-called "bad" movies than "good" ones. However this time I'm with the Blockbuster crowd - 'The Beach' is a genuine turkey! In fact it's the worst movie I've seen so far this decade, and that includes 'Hannibal', 'Zoolander', 'Tomb Raider', 'The 6th Day', and frankly way TOO many others to even think about!
Now look I'm not even a DiCaprio hater (though after this I'm leaning that way!). I have studiously avoided watching 'Titanic', but I thought he was pretty good in 'This Boy's Life' opposite De Niro, and more than adequate in 'Gilbert Grape' and 'The Quick and the Dead'. I even thought his self-parodic cameo was the only good thing in Woody Allen's 'Celebrity'. But Leo is SO obnoxious and unsympathetic as Richard that from the word go you truly do not give a damn about what happens to him, especially as he shows himself to be just as much a loser as the tourists and backpackers he claims to be so different from.
The plot has more holes than a Mafia Don's corpse, and is yet another "searing inditement" against the emptiness of Modern Life, that like 'Fight Club' wimps out at the end and has the rebel running back to the comforts of corporate America. Puh-lease! This ain't Nietsche for the New Millenium, it's Ferris Bueller for the Korn crowd.
Director Danny Boyle showed so much promise with the taut thriller 'Shallow Grave' and the savvy junkie black comedy 'Trainspotting', but after giving us all a scare with the Godawful stupidity of 'A Life Less Ordinary' he has managed to top (or is that bottom?) himself with this embarassing stinker. Whether he will ever be able to redeem himself remains to be seen. The question is now, do we even care? I put myself through the torture of 'The Beach', but that could well be the limit of my endurance. Or maybe I'm just morbidly fascinated to see if Boyle is capable of making a movie WORSE than this. Is anybody??! I truly hope for all our sakes that the answer is no!