MovieChat Forums > The Beach (2000) Discussion > this movie just doesn't work

this movie just doesn't work

posted 11 years ago by crakatoot
29 replies | jump to latest

seems like a cool idea, and Dicaprio has been good In a lot of movies, but this is just a mess.
His character is just annoying, which could have worked in a way but I think the movie was trying to make him likable. The story doesn't really go anywhere, the philopshy is phoned In. The end is lackluster. And the weird visuals( which worked in Trainspotting) here they just seem, well silly. Lot of potential, anyone who has ever traveled to real for away places, you know the desire to just disappear. It could have been a good movie, but it was ....stupid. i told you not to stop the boat. Now lets go. Apocaylpse Now

[–] McQueen1980 9 years ago

i liked the movie and it does go to dark places

the imperfections of being a backpacker are parallel to this movie

only thing is most people choose the boring route

this is when you do not!

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] crakatoot 9 years ago

We'll I guess that works, cause there wasn't anything else

[–] Xikar 8 years ago

I totally agree with your review. I gave this movie a (2)

[–] PeterBlues (790) 6 years ago

the scene with the make believe sharks were unintentionally funny, even before the revelation because of the guy's reaction, and when it's clear it's a joke it's like one of those unfunny jokes "hehehe.. it weren't sharks.", well the movie are packed with unintentionally funny moments, it's also remarkable the contrast of the main role, first you got his inner dialogue and such where he's this bright deep young guy, then in other scenes acting like a complete boob kid. then as usual with modern movies the language and scenes makes it appear you've got an adult movie on, the main role doesn't look big enough to be allowed to watch it, it's not a jab, i enjoy watching this actor. there is an actress making a guest voice appearance in family guy with a very heavy british accent that i figure has to be either cate blanchett or the lead in this. to sum this up the movie vibe is kind of like an old long john silver adventure but with blood, gore, violence, adult scenes, bad language, some of the blessings of evolution in censorship, and to get a similar story with a reasonable running time check out the twilight zone episode "the parallel".

⛱ 🏖 🏝 🏊‍ ⛰ 🦈 🌅

two suns from east to west,
madeleine and ryanne,
blinded me in mornin meadow,
mind melted broke down tractor,
like pitchfork for soda till overall belly leaked,
burned me up turned to soil in field,
rolled as hay all the way to the cow shed,
with madeleine and ryanne in the wagon on a groovy planet.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] TMC-4 (19493) 5 years ago

Why is The Beach (2000) so hated?

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/b52m03/why_is_the_beach_2000_so_hated/

[–] MNRebecca (765) 5 years ago

The arrival of the 4 dumbshits - that worked.

Sal planting Richard to deal with them - that worked, though she should have made it clearer WHY Richard had to get the map (so the farmers wouldn't find it).

The HEART OF DARKNESS crap did NOT work. It would have been better to have Richard try more directly to retrieve the map and persuade the foursome to leave.

The slaughter of the foursome, discovery of Richard, attempted execution, and abandonment of the beach all worked, except Bugs should have stayed with Sal.

Thoughts?

[–] GordianNott (137) 5 years ago

It worked well enough for me. Not the best movie ever, but it was okay.

I think there was always tension beneath their druggie, hippie paradise, like they were living on a volcano. The map gets out, more tourists show up, and the game is finally over. So, broad strokes worked for me. Having him go jungle-crazy hunter was weird and didn't work, but I can overlook that.

Something that was haunting was how they partied on while their erstwhile party buddy died in the forest. It exposed them for a bunch of worthless people, so I was glad when the whole thing collapsed. Karma.

[–] MNRebecca (765) 5 years ago

I didn't blame them for that because Cristo refused to go to (a) hospital. Why? Go, get better, come back. What's the big deal?

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

I think you nailed the main problems with the film. It works for the most part but those shortcomings let it down.

I seem to remember the book being much better, broader and deeper.

An issue I found was the pacing. The film seemed to constantly be in a rush and we never really sat down to get to know the characters, they all seemed one-dimensional. Some more detailed character work and cleverer dialogue was needed. The French couple had zero personality.

The breezy pace also meant that periods of time where, say, DiCaprio is alone and goes nuts sort of came out of nowhere. How did he eat (other than the odd caterpillar)? Why didn’t he just confront the four backpackers?

Once things stopped being fun on the island why didn’t Richard just... leave? He was kind of a selfish hedonist so it’s not like he had any real loyalty to the ‘project’

This would have worked better with 20mins extra runtime devoted to these things.

[–] bigbadwolf666 (4707) 3 years ago

Leo fans along with the box office tend to be one dimensional idiots who do think in a simple dumb way. Why were the french so cool? Cause they’re French. Why was the film so fast paced? So we can keep the low tarts attention span on the edge. Why did leo lose his mind? Cause he’s in the jungle by himself and it sucks so losing your mind is the common step.

[–] BillySlater (4125) 2 months ago

Good points. I'd also add that Richard was too much of a morally bankrupt character to be rooting for as a protagonist.

[–] Kj1oceanlust (1430) 4 years ago

Your just reading into it too deeply and wrong. The film's most annoying characters were Daphy, Bugs and Sammy and Zeph. Why not just accept the film for how it was done even if it was rather different from the book. Most movies can't correlate perfectly with the book as it would make the movie too long. I think the movie made perfect sense and it even had Leo commentating it, so how could it be so tough to follow and understand? Summed up briefly; some people (Sal and Daphy presumably) had, had enough of our modern society. They wanted something better. Something beautiful and secret where they and possibly a few others could live happily ever after. They found the beach and set up a colony on the island. But Daphy eventually defected and couldn't keep his mouth shut and told Richard and gave him the map. And Richard passed on the map. So others began showing up and they're idealic utopia crumbled after the farmers realized the island couldn't remain a secret for long with the beach colony living there and shoed them away.