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75Cinematographer Darius Khonji does a superb job of conveying both the sensual beauty (there's a spectacular moonlight-on-the-water sex scene with Leo and the lovely Ledoyen), and the darkness of Richard's paradise lost.
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75It's a movie to feel. Even when the thinking isn't all there, the emotions are, all the way to the film's poignant last seconds.
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75An edgy, hypnotic entertainment that's like a Club Med production of "Lord of the Flies."
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67It doesn't really come off, but it's an admirably ambitious, and mostly very engaging, coming-of-age adventure that apes the spirit of Joseph Conrad.
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63Always a joy to look at -- and even if the story isn't half as profound as the filmmakers think it is.
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63Whether he's smacking into an iceberg or flopping topless onto a sandy beach, DiCaprio is still maddeningly lightweight.
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63DiCaprio is up to all but the heaviest emotional lifting; when he enters a maniacal phase, you wish for Martin Sheen, who did the "back to the jungle" thing better in "Apocalypse Now."
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60The theme (social breakdown in isolation) is strong, but the plot meanders, and the motivations are decidedly hazy, so its popularity probably stems from its seamless blending of naive wonder and soul-mining horror.
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58As a book, The Beach offers the option of diving deep. As a movie, it sticks too close to the shoreline.
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50A seriously confused film that makes three or four passes at being a better one and doesn't complete any of them.
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50Tries to take us from heaven to hell but winds up leaving us in limbo: exasperated and dumfounded.
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50The story is less original than its setting - it knocks off everything from "Lord of the Flies" to "The Blair Witch Project" -and its unromantic moods may make DiCaprio's countless "Titanic" fans want to swim in the opposite direction.
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50There's only so much meaningful interplay you can get out of a beachful of slackers and some tanning oil.
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50Terrific looking in the extreme, The Beach is the movie equivalent of vacation reading: no more demanding -- and no less satisfying -- than a sandy paperback left on a damp towel.
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50Boyle's movie jettisons much of the telling detail; it has the shambling rhythm of a shaggy dog story and so simplifies the characters' ethical dilemmas that it's hard to care what they do.
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50It's not that The Beach is a stinker, exactly. It's that nothing in it -- and that includes the gifted DiCaprio -- ever feels other than perfunctory.
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50An intermittently gripping, good-looking movie.
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50Colorful and exciting, as far as it goes. But Boyle and Hodge pull back on their usual wit and grit.
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50As (DiCaprio's) character heads for The Beach's predictable heart of darkness denouement, only die-hard fans will have the heart to tag along.
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50Visually resplendent but dramatically uneven.
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45The titular beach really is stunning. But the second hour is an incomprehensible mess that's too dark for Leo's Teen People fanbase and too convenient for the arthouse crowd.
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40It's hobbled by odd plot contrivances and some less-than-stellar acting from DiCaprio.
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40Boyle's Beach lacks imagination and energy, two things that might have distracted us, at least occasionally, from the material's tepidness.
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40The opening reels here promise something big, but the movie settles for a sour, predetermined funk -- "Lord of the Flies" as imagined by a Nintendo junkie.
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40Obvious in its observations, predictable in its conclusions, and a little dull in the telling.
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40Not a terrible movie, just an insubstantial one. All of DiCaprio's charisma and the director's savvy are used to divert us from the fact that there's not much going on.
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40Gorgeous but curiously weightless.
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40A narrative that tries to juggle thriller elements, tons of pop culture imagery, and way too much philosophical baggage.
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38It's "Beach Blanket Bingo" revisited, but with a Eurocast and more exotic locations.
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34The movie is an experience, of a sort they had a name for in the '60s: bummer.
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30Barely a movie.
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30Monumentally unimaginative. Thumbs down!
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30Relentlessly beautiful and wholly annoying.
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25Murky, pretentious and torturously inert.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 13
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Mixed: 0 out of 13
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Negative: 3 out of 13
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TimR.10