"The Beach" is a nice movie that could've stood on its own self
by not being compared to the book hadn't the writer of the movie
fu**ed up the great story elements from the book which made it
such an excellent reading experience. Alex Garland is a
wonderful story teller and his debut novel The Beach simply got
me by the brains. I loved it. I loved it so much that I had to
love this movie. Even though the movie didn't do the book
justice (which movies accomplish that anyway) it did have great
visual imagery and a great techno soundtrack (which I have on CD
now but didn't necessarily buy, know what I mean).
Leonardo
DiCaprio (Gangs
of New York,
Catch Me If You Can) chose to play Richard, the main character of
The Beach.
As I learned, Ewan McGregor was actually up for the role but
when Leo became interested, FOX must've thought, "Hey, if
Leo plays Richard we'll make much more money than if we have
that British actor guy. Let's pay Leo $20 million and get this one
out by February so all the girls will spend their money on a
movie which could've been better hadn't we altered the book's
storyline in many ways." Well, enough said about the
changed story line, which ultimately brings me to the end of
this short review now.
