|
|
|
The Beach
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie
Ledoyen, Robert Carlisle |
| MPAA Rated: |
R |
| Released By: |
20th Century
Fox
|
| Web Site: |
www.thebeachmovie.com |
| Kiddie Movie: |
Not at all.
|
| Date Movie: |
I saw two couples leave in the middle - leave
her at home. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
Sex and nudity and I'm still only giving it 1
1/2 star.
|
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
People get shot and some shark wounds.
|
| Action: |
Some chasing. |
| Laughs: |
The movie. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
The shark wounds. |
| Memorable
Quote: |
"We're in dope heaven!"
|
| Directed By: |
Danny Boyle |
| Produced By: |
Andrew Macdonald
|
|
|
The Beach
A Movie Review |
|
 |
Because I’m usually pretty easy to
please, if you put some quality violence, some nice gore, a
hot lady or two (getting naked is a plus), and the potential
for a good movie, well, everything can suck and I’ll
still give it a decent rating.
“The Beach” had all of that, but I just can’t
get past the scene where Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes
nuts. It was at
that point that I saw two couples leave the movie, and I
wanted to also except I had to see where it would all end
up. It ended up
with a commercial for Macintosh.
I don’t know, ever since
“Titanic” it seems like I’ve seen DiCaprio
trying to get out of the teenage heart-throb persona that it
gave him. There
were the stories of his bar hopping in L.A., there was his
role in “Celebrity,” and now there is “The
Beach.” As
Richard, he narrates his way into Bangkok, where he seems to
intentionally over-emphasize the “kok” part when
he says it, finding himself sick of home and looking for
adventure. Shacking
up in a bug-infested hotel, one room next to him holds the
hot Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) while the opposite room
holds the psychotic Daffy (Robert Carlisle). While sharing a joint through the wall partition,
Daffy tells Richard of this beautiful island paradise, with
the coolest beach and the best pot.
As Richard’s fate has it, the next day there is a map on
his door to the island, Daffy went totally wacky, and
Richard asks Francoise and her boyfriend if they want to try
and find the island. They
go along.
So, yea, they find the island paradise,
half inhabited by pot-growing folk ready to kill anyone who
invades their plantation, the other half inhabited by a
commune of hippie-folk, seemingly self-sufficient until
someone makes a run to the mainland when the necessities of
home become more important than the beautiful beach.
Well, Richard falls for Francoise (there’s a surprise
– who wouldn’t?), she falls for him, they get
naked in the lagoon, and all is well until a group of folks
who Richard slipped a copy of the map to try to show up.
Richard is sent to a twisted solitary confinement waiting for
them to arrive so he can steal the map back, and in the
meantime, well, goes insane.
I suspended my disbelief about the movie
up until this point because it was a movie, but when Richard
finds himself hallucinatingly traipsing through the jungle
after the enemy, my suspension of reality turned to
“when is this going to end?”
DiCaprio does a decent job as the
thrill-seeking Richard, Ledoven is hot and gets naked,
you’ve got a couple of gruesome shark bites, and some
folks get gunned down.
The movie had potential, but seemed to overdue it on the shock
value instead of keeping a little bit of realism.
My main case in point on this was Daffy’s suicide.
The story was that Daffy slit his wrists, his guts, or maybe
his neck. Fine,
the dude killed himself, but the room, with blood
everywhere, and I mean everywhere, looked like his body
exploded rather than just a suicide.
Maybe a hopped-up-on-drugs suicide can splatter blood all over
a room, what do I know, but it just bothered me.
So, with that, I say wait for cable on
this one, even with the blood, gore, sex, nudity, and
potential for a good story.
It just doesn’t go there.
1 ½ star out of 5.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |
