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A day at The Beach

  • 13-02-2000 7:51pm
    #1
    Shinji
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,275 ✭✭✭


    Went to see The Beach in Virgin last night...

    (First off, why do Virgin insist on giving you those crappy little plastic spoons for ice cream? They break at the first sign of any resistance - it took me six of the little buggers to get through a tub of Ben & Jerrys Cherry Garcia ice cream last night! Whatever happened to those little wooden flat spoons that you used to get? They rocked...)

    The movie has been hyped to bits, and it SHOULD be very good; the book its based on is brilliant, and most of the team is the same as the crew that made Trainspotting, with the exception of Ewan McGregor, who has been replaced with Leonardo diCaprio for this outing. DiCaprio was paid 20 million dollars for this movie; an amazing two thirds of the overall budget.

    Sadly, the film doesn't live up to expectations. It's very clear what the problem is; the plot of the book was quite intricate, charting the discovery of the island commune by three travellers (Richard (DiCaprio), a French chick, and her boyfriend), their life in the community, and then a previous mistake of Richard's coming back to haunt the commune. The scriptwriter here tried to fit the entire plot of the book into the movie, and as a result, it feels disjointed and rushed. Richard's descent into madness later in the film just looks bizarre onscreen; the extra explanation and story-time in the book made it all make sense.

    The acting performances are nothing to write home about; DiCaprio turns in a pretty good role as Richard, at least proving that he's capable of being something other than a star-struck lover; Robert Carlyle does what he does best, ie froth at the mouth; and everyone else is just scenery, really. The French chick who provides love interest is pretty, but doesn't really do much; and her boyfriend serves as the traditional "obstacle to romance" character, but is so bloody wimpy you wonder what she's doing with him in the first place.

    The scenery is stunning, and the camerawork is amazing; the acting, although I seemed really down on it, is passable. It's just a shame that the script is such an absolute load of donkey nads; a bit of simplification and rewriting could have made this into an entertaining and thoughtful movie about how far people will go to attain happiness, and the price of "paradise". As it is, it's just a very pretty but ultimately unsatisfyung mess of a movie.

    ja,
    Rob


Comments

  • #2
    El_Presidente
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,484 ✭✭✭El_Presidente


    Not sure if I want to go see it now. I might just buy the book instead, everyone is saying its better.


  • #3
    Shinji
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,275 ✭✭✭Shinji


    HMV have a sale on books in the basement of their store on Grafton Street; there are loads of really great books going 2 for 12 quid. Picked up Irvine Welsh's "Filth" and "Trainspotting", Ardal O'Hanlon's "Talk of the Town", and a copy of "The Beach", for 24 quid, which ain't half bad.

    And I only came in for a VGA adapter for my Dreamcast.... smile.gif


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