Over-dressed and boring

Rating: 3/10 (8 August 2000)

The beach is a beautiful movie. You could almost watch it with the sound off, much in the vein of the "Endless Summer" surfing movies...because outside of scenery, it's hard for me to see anything else to waste time on.

The movie starts out interestingly enough. Robert Carlyle gives such an energetic performance in his small roll it almost suggests of great things to come. This expectation lasts up until our heroes find their island paradise, and then the entire thing down-shifts into neutral. As reviewers have stated, few of the characters in this movie are likeable; they are pretentious, naive and treacherous. Their loyalties lie to themselves and their pleasures alone. Dicaprio gives an uninspired performance as perhaps the most despicable of the lot...his selfishness and childish behavior destroying any sympathy or empathy when his Kurtz-like descent into madness arrives. By the time the movie reaches its dramatic peak, I was too bored with the entire thing to care.
I picked this up because of Danny Boyle's involvement. He does a nice job with the movie, but throws in way too many bells and whistles in attempt to make a bad story interesting. I've never read the book, but if it's anything like this adaption...I'll never understand how it sold like it did. This is a complete yawner. It presents a obvious and tired examination of that certain clique-ish side of human nature that pervades the island camp. The conclusion is anti-climactic and predictable. The characters are not developed at all; it's like watching an episode of "The Real World". The acting (with the exception of Carlyle and Tilda Swinton) is weak. As other reviewers have stated, another actor in DiCaprio's place may have improved this movie significantly, as he is very unconvincing to say the least.

The soundtrack is good for the most part. The scenery is beautiful....and there are enough beautiful people to fill a dozen bad sit-coms. Too bad there's dialogue. It would have been better off without it.