The Beach

Robert Carlisle, the scenes without DiCaprio, and the hope of seeing the chick's breasts...

Outside of the soundtrack I can't think of anything I liked in this. Oh the island looked nice too.

The book was quite good.

I thought it was nice to see DiCaprio take a different turn with his films after Titanic. He could have gone the more high-profile project path, but stayed somewhat down the middle with his work.

The film itself is intense at times, which is why I don't dismiss its quality.

I think Leo is fine actor, I don't get the hate either. Although it would have been interesting to see this with Ewan McGregor in the role as they had originally planned.

The first 15 or 20 minutes of this movie are fantastic. The opening monologue and all the ensuing craziness is pure electricity. It kind of falls apart once they get to the island but I still enjoy it. Like A Life Less Ordinary, it's kind of a flawed little opus. Danny Boyle really only hit it out of the park once with Trainspotting. Everything else is just bounces off that outfield wall- not quite there. I still love his movies though. Besides, where other than The Beach do you get to see Leo in all his koopa stomping glory?

I enjoyed the film for that scene and that scene only.

If nothing else, I just appreciate the way the Beach was shot. I think Danny Boyle is still underrated, even after such high profile movies as Trainspotting and 28 Days Later (at least in the states, don't know how he's recieved in Europe). Hell, I'm even a big fan of A Life Less Ordinary. I just love the color he adds to his films & they always have fantastic soundtracks.

I don't like some of the changes they made from the book, but that's to be expected - it happens to all adapted screenplays in some way. Though I do think the ending in the movie is better than the book.

Here in germany, Trainspotting and The Beach are really liked and praised by geeks and the normal Joe Moviegoers. 28 Days Later somehow didn't infest anyone over here.

Bump because it's being talked about in another thread by a few people, and discussion may as well go here.

It's not a good movie, but would actually be one of my candidates for 'Nope, Still Not Good', as I come back to it regularly, probably yearly. The book originally stoked my interest in travel, and I've been to the beach from the film (which is a lot smaller than you think, and not totally enclosed'. I don't actually mind that most of the characters are assholes, because that whole 'aren't we amazing and different' attitude is pretty common amongst travellers- fuck knows I was guilty of it at times. I remember Boyle saying that one of his problems making the film was that he didn't really like any of the characters (not that a movie needs likeable characters to be good).

It's more that I just don't buy Richard's descent into madness- I don't know if its that it seems so sudden, or that the Daffy dream sequences seem to be placed randomly rather than giving off any sense of escalation, or if it's simply weakness in the script.

Oh, I may also watch it for how fucking hot Virginie Ledoyen is, too.

Oh, and the Badalamenti score is beautiful.

I think this is my main problem with the movie as well. The third act needed more to sell you on him going nuts so quickly. It really feels like it all happens to fast and the ending is too abrupt. I'm not familiar with the source material, but do things go more to shit in the book?

Other than that, I guess I'm in the minority, because I really like the film. It never really reaches the heights of 28 Days Later or Sunshine, Boyle's other films that have 3rd act letdowns, but it's not worthy of all the hate it's gotten over the years either. A Life Less Ordinary still does. What a mess that movie is.

I thought his whole decent into madness was an adopted affectation, like putting on a faux british accent after returning from your year abroad or something. He was play acting, like he saw in hte movies or in videogames (hence the movie clips and video game montage). When the girl gets shot in front of him, he kind of realizes "oh, this is real life" and instantly is "sane".


PS Adrian, the movie used CGI to fill in that cliff and make the beach enclosed. I want to go to that beach someday

Starts out well with DiCaprio's narration and Robert Carlyle's appearance, and slowly slides downhill until about 2/3 of the way through, when it drops rapidly and finally explodes by the time it reaches the appallingly awful "happy postcard" ending. Don't know if it would be better with McGregor, but I have a hard time imagining it could be any worse than it ultimately is.

Yeah, on the DVD it has the alternate ending which cuts out the internet cafe stuff, and to be honest feels a lot more appropriate- with all the shit that happens (mercy killing, getting threatened with having your head blown off etc) the last scene rings horribly false.

Just watched this for the first time. There were a few threads devoted to The Beach, but this has been posted on most recently.

 

So I'm a big fan of Danny Boyle, but this movie and I didn't connect. It starts strongly with the visions of the harsh streets of Bangkok (much more convincing than The Hangover 2) and the subsequent apathetic yet self-important tourists lounging around watching Apocalypse Now. I was even with the movie until they arrived at the island (although the French actors were not all that great, and Leo hadn't quite refined his craft yet or was maybe trying too hard to distance himself from Romeo & Juliet and Titanic).

 

Once they get to the community, however, the movie lost me. Almost forty five minutes in and an ansemble cast is suddenly introduced, and the tone switches from deeply melancholic and nihilistic to goofy sitcom antics. It is fascinating, however, to see Boyle's style development: the pop/techno music, the fourth wall breaking and talking to the camera, the quirky-cuteness.

 

By the time Leo loses his mind (and I do appreciate Princess Kate's take on it above) I wasn't buying the tonal shifts. I admire the ambition of the video game sequence, but it all came across as silly. Within the context of Boyle's greater portfolio, however, it's provocative to consider his constant return to the man driven to going native. Here with Leo, Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later, and Pinbacker in Sunshine: all white men in isolation that have been pushed too far and resort to violence. I wonder why he keeps returning to this theme.

 

I could see the ending coming from a mile away. Still, worth the one watch. Tilda Swinton looks like an alien.