I know I'm a little behind on the curve, but today was the first time I saw the 2000 movie 'The Beach' with Leo DiCaprio.

This movie seems to be a perfect, almost classic example, of a movie with a fantastic first half -- maybe even first two thirds -- and an ending so awful it has to be said twice. The ending was awful.

The story starts with some witty voice-over with solid characterization for Leo; we get his philosophy on life and why he'll do anything, like take a shot of snake blood. Then he gets to the island, moving past some gun-wielding drug henchmen, and eventually makes it to the Beach, a society of about thirty people who live in this paradise where everyone does their small share of work a day, and the rest of the time is spent high on marijuana and playing sports and having sex.

I don't even gripe about the obscenely obvious plot point of Leo tracing the map for his 'friends' in the beginning, though I would've liked for it to surfaced earlier, and the principle conflict to be something else.

The problem with the movie is no central focus, with the movie making multiple stabs at problems and hoping four mediocre plots will amount to one great one. Here's a tip: it never does. All right, sometimes it does, but we need to A) LOVE the characters, B) LOVE the scenarios, and C) it has to be witty. An example that comes to mind is 'Love Actually,' though many movie based on vignettes and handfuls of characters pull this off. But 'The Beach' is not a vignette movie, therefore fails miserably.

Leo being stationed in isolation to watch for the newcomers is when the movie jumps the shark. The movie even stoops so low as to parody a video game, which is so terrible that I will not describe it, and also pray that you never have to see it. Talk about being thrown out a movie. It's even worse than if Tyler Durden was splicing penises into your film reels.

So we get thirty minutes of Leo playing Rambo, with the headband and everything. The movie promises, at first, a focus on this perfect society, then shifts to themes of imaging your life alone, to the morality of mercy killings, to an unfortunate ending where everyone lives happily ever after. A movie like this does not deserve a happy ending. Actually, allow me to rephrase.

The definition of a 'happy ending' is always redefined, in every movie, according to the circumstances the characters are in. In 'Fight Club,' the Narrator shoots himself in the face, yet he's rid of Tyler Durder and kind-of ends up with Marla. That's close to a happy ending. In 'Titanic' Rose loves Jack and does all the things she never would've done without meeting him. That's pretty happy.

The acceptable happy ending for 'The Beach' should have been Leo getting off the island with his original two friends, while the others are either left ambiguously on the island, or maybe everyone gets off, but that should not have happened without at least one important character dying. The ending that made the cut involves, basically, everyone saying "oh well," and returning home unharmed. No one believes strongly enough in the Beach, in themselves, in the paradise, in their drugs, or in their love to stand up and fight. And a story with characters who appear strong but are that passive doesn't deserve recognition.

So my advice, if you have not seen this film, is to watch the first hour and fifteen minutes, shut it off, and then think up your own ending. It will be better, I promise.