The Beach is the latest offering from top British movie makers Danny Doyle, John Hodge and Andrew Macdonald who brought us Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. The Beach, however, is a departure from their usual off-beat offerings - for a start they cast perhaps the world’s most famous actor Leo DiCaprio and secondly, the film cost $50 million and was set in Thailand.

The trio’s usual favourite, Ewan McGregor, was said to be more than a little peeved that DiCaprio was cast instead of him. After all, if the Scottish actor was good enough to be top of the bill in Star Wars, why wasn’t he deemed suitable for The Beach? Perhaps it’s all to do with the box office takings.

The Beach came from the novel by Alex Garland and tells the story of Richard, an American backpacker, who arrives in Thailand. He meets the drug-taking Daffy (Robert Carlyle) who tells him about The Beach, a secret island paradise. When Daffy kills himself and leaves Richard a map of how to find the island, he knows that this could be the ultimate adventure he has been looking for. He sets off with Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and Etienne (Guillaume Canet) to find the island. They meet with danger before finding a whole community of foreign travellers who have also discovered The Beach.

From there, Richard and the French couple settle into community life - enjoying the breathtakingly beautiful island and all it has to offer. Richard, a video game fan and bit of a geek, suddenly finds himself the hero of a potential shark attack and much respected member of the group.

But then everything turns sour when community leader Sal (Tilda Swinton) discovers that Richard told the secret of The Beach to other travellers. Richard is then ordered to protect the island from the new travellers when he retreats into the trees and goes a bit bonkers, finding himself the star of his own video game. Safe to say, the island paradise community then finds itself in disarray.

The photography used in The Beach is stunning. Both aerial and underwater camera work help build up the beauty of the paradise island, which makes you dash to Going Places afterwards for a holiday brochure. Initially, the film is great for anyone who’s backpacked (although Leo doesn’t wear the essential bum bag), but once we arrive at the island, the story begins to wear a bit thin. In reality, the story is a grown up version of Lord of the Flies - which is better than The Beach in any case.

If you’re a DiCaprio fan, then you will probably love The Beach because there’s plenty of his flesh to see. He may be a great actor but he didn’t seem up to the part - too pretty, too neat to really be a traveller and not “gritty” enough to be the unexpected hero. There are some laughs to be had - and some typical Trainspotting-style, surreal scenes. Overall, the acting is good enough, but it’s really the photography and the beauty of the scenery which makes the film. And, in my opinion, they should have stuck with McGregor.