Herald rating: * *
Running time: 119 mins
Rental: Today
Review: Ewan McDonald
In a fleabag hotel in Bangkok, a traveller (Robert Carlyle) tells Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) about an island paradise, hard to find but worth the detour, as they say in the guidebooks. Richard recruits Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and Etienne (Guillaume Canet), a French couple in the next room, and they set out for hippie heaven.
Obviously failing to heed Lonely Planet's hints about travelling in the Thai hinterland, the trio brave various adventures to arrive at a retro commune where pot is free, bongos beat every night and all is blissful on the beach, watched over by the stern community leader, Sal (Tilda Swinton).
Clearly the scriptwriters also encountered the local horticultural industry about this time, because the movie becomes (a) a love triangle; (b) a disjointed fantasy in which Richard becomes the hero of a video game, stomping the landscape in computer graphics; (c) Jaws IV; (d) an end-of-the-millennium Tarzan.
Alex Garland's novel The Beach, on which this was based, is a darker tale for grownups. But the movie is a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio and his pecs and Hollywood isn't going to upset the target demographic by showing Richard as he really is: a narcissistic kid out of his depth.
e.g. has no such sensibilities. This is a silly, childish, vain version of Blue Lagoon crossed with Lord of the Flies.
<i>Video:</i> The Beach
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