DICAPRIO'S NEWEST MOVIE NO DAY AT 'THE BEACH'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Leonardo DiCaprio may be cute, but watching him undergo an amoral education in ``The Beach'' is not a pretty sight.

This isn't so much because Richard - the vaguely alienated, self- centeredly romantic tourist looking for fun and, maybe, meaning in Thailand - is one of the biggest rats ever mistaken for a hero in a major motion picture. The bigger problem is the glib actor's inability to make anything interesting out of the lying, cheating, selfish, whining and potentially murderous hottie (whatever will the little girls think?). The guy's creepiness has a marshmallow core; when depths of jagged cussedness are called for, DiCaprio just acts goofy.

But the shallowness of the performance can't fairly be blamed on the actor alone. It's of a piece with every other aspect of this superficial, derivative and pretentious movie. And the piece's inherent flaws go all the way back to Alex Garland's source novel, which told the story better but still suffered from a fatal combination of existential lightheadedness and bratty angst tortuously molded to suit the sensibilities of today's young adults.

And like too much of Generation X-plus' cultural output, ``The Beach'' keeps reminding us that their elders did it better. The main touchstones here are ``Lord of the Flies'' and a constantly referenced ``Apocalypse Now,'' with a little ``Bridge on the River Kwai'' monomania at the climax. Mainly, it's yet another story about white folks losing their bearings in the tropics. Only this time, sillier; the whole thing plays like the rise and fall of a Club Med managed by Colonel Kurtz.

Directed by Danny Boyle, the British flashmaster (``Shallow Grave,'' ``Trainspotting,'' ``A Life Less Ordinary''), who seems to be interested in addressing serious matters as insubstantially as possible, the film starts off amusingly enough. DiCaprio's Richard is knocking around Bangkok, complaining - in the kind of voiceover that filmmakers who know how to show what they're getting at don't use - that Western travelers come searching for unique, genuine experiences but wind up doing the same, mostly inane things. Then, on cue, an incomprehensible Scotsman (Robert Carlyle) leaves Richard a hand-drawn sea chart before slitting his own wrists.

The map shows the route to an unspoiled isle whose bewitching beauty the dead guy had praised and cursed. Bewitched himself by the female half of a young French couple, Richard convinces Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and Etienne (Guillaume Canet) to venture with him to the possible paradise.

Which they more or less find, once they work their way onto the officially uninhabited island and past the fields of heavily armed Thai pot farmers. A bunch of blissed-out expatriates have set up a pleasure commune on the shore of a pristine lagoon, and the newcomers are enchanted.

But gee, guess what? Life at the beach isn't as perfect as it seems. Though there is no official leader or ideology, a tough-minded Englishwoman, Sal (Tilda Swinton), essentially rules like a cult leader. Since the dope-growers value their privacy even more than the tourists love their unspoiled resort, paranoia over any newcomers finding the place looms large.

Indeed, you don't want to have any kind of medical problem at the Beach, since Sal forbids doctor visits. And because the beautiful lagoon, which is presumably the property's main attraction, is infested with an unusually high number of man-eating sharks, that particular rule is quite problematic.

You start laughing at the movie when this becomes apparent, if you aren't giggling already. The main plot point - that everyone is having so much fun at the beach they'll go to any lengths to preserve their utopia - just doesn't ring true. Lack of privacy, jealousy, gossip and deprivation seem to be the main operating principles, volleyball the top recreational activity. And you can play volleyball on the mainland, with cold beer handy, too.

There's more risible stuff, like Richard, exiled and alone after everyone figures out what a jerk he is, doing dances with wolves in the jungle and interpreting his dementia in videogame imagery. That's a stab at intentional satire (some of the film's other cultural lampoons, to be fair, hit their targets and are actually funny). But it's also emblematic of ``The Beach's'' overriding failure to address its theme - the difficulty of getting real in an increasingly wired, commercialized and alienating world - in other than virtual terms itself.

THE FACTS

--The film: ``The Beach'' (R; drug use, language, violence, nudity, sex).

--The stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Tilda Swinton, Guillaume Canet, Robert Carlyle.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by John Hodge, based on Alex Garland's novel. Produced by Andrew Macdonald. Released by 20th Century Fox.

--Running time: One hour, 58 minutes.

--Playing: Citywide.

--Our rating: Two stars.

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Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his companions try to evade a deadly menace in ``The Beach.''