Not your average trainspotting

Rating: 5/10 (21 August 2016)

If we get to think about it, Danny Boyle's highest point as of 2000 was definitely the year 1996. Trainspotting was such a smash hit and a defining moment of the whole generation that it was just too tempting to try recreating its success. And, with a new emerging star of Leo DiCaprio, whose pretty face has been looking at us from the posters on the girl room walls ever since his Titanic days, the task seemed like a piece of cake: add some palms, beaches, spice it up with a French hottie and add some Robert Carlyle's brilliance as a cherry on top and a guarantee of the old-school spirit. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Or so they thought...
Some spirit you can't deny this film indeed. Boyle's signature upbeat techno soundtrack, lush imagery and the whole sense of an acid trip do make this film look like its director's older child. And even though DiCaprio of 2000 is more of his annoying adolescent self than of that solid and mature figure he's become later, he is natural enough that you don't have to wish Ewan McGregor was back at his place.
However, this time something's missing, some invisible but crucial glue that holds the story together and makes it evenly paced. Trainspotting was so amazing because it never dragged for a second. The Beach, on the other hand, feels much more jerky, combining the intensity-packed moments with outright droning or unnecessary filler. And while that depressing Scottish scenery could make even a filler look refreshingly novel, beaches of Thailand, although beautiful and calling, are more fulfilling for a tourist brochure than for a movie with a certain pretence of cultural weight.
Still, it's not the patches of horrible dialogue and ridiculous continuity that bring this film down. Apparently Danny Boyle is better at building a story than dismantling it. And since The Beach' plot reaches its paradisaical climax only halfway through the movie, desecrating this paradise and bringing us back to the mortal world was a paramount task. And that's where it all went haywire, with lack of logic, consistency and sometimes even basic sanity. When an organic utopia falls apart it's never pretty, but one doesn't have to turn it into a travesty.
All in all, The Beach is good at being a story of a spoilt kid's dream adventure going slightly sour. As for anything behind that pretty but shallow facade, like strong characters or a gritty story of their struggle for their ideals, don't hold your hopes too high.