Lacking all the elements a movie needs!

Rating: 3/10 (13 February 2000)

I didn't want to see this movie in the first place; I just went because of two things. One is for my love of movies, and the other is because my girlfriend really wanted to see it. By the end of this movie, we both agreed that it was the crappiest movie we'd seen (at least in theaters) in a long time. THE BEACH lacked all the elements that I look for in a movie and that I think makes a movie important. I was really tempted to sneak out of that stupid movie and go see THE TIGGER STORY!
Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young dope-addicted traveler who is trying to forget his past, meets a psycho named Daffy (Robert Carlyle) who gives him a map to a beautiful island/beach paradise before committing suicide. Richard, along with two more dope-addicts, Sal (Tilda Swinton) and Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen), set out to find this beach. What they find is a community living together without the evils of the world, struggling to keep their existence a secret so the rest of the world doesn't spoil it. It turns out Richard is the biggest danger to the secret of the community.
Sound like it might have a plot. Think again. This movie is completely plotless. At first, you may think it's a love story between Leonardo and Tilda, but that stop quickly. Then it seems like it is about Leonardo losing his sanity, but that quickly comes to an end as well. Then it seems a may be a fight between the community and another group living on the island, but that's not the case either. You will wait from the start to the end of this movie for the plot to start, but it will never come.
Another element this movie lacks, in fact probably the only element that is left for a movie with no plot, is character development. Leonardo's character in the beginning refuses to talk at all about his past. Godforbid we might actually get to know his character. You'll feel just the same about him in the beginning as you do in the end, with no development at all. The rest of the characters are also boring and don't get much better. The acting is nothing special. Leonardo does a fair job, but the horrible script prevents me from calling his performance anything great.
Unless you're a dedicated Leonardo fan, skip THE BEACH. I found it very long, boring, pointless and not entertaining.