Search - The Tesseract on DVD

Fantastic movie The Tesseract

joe larkin | 05/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Tesseract From the mind of Oxide Pang, co-director of the international horror sensation The Eye, comes this stylish and high-tension adaptation of the book by The Beach author Alex Garland. As drug dealer Sean (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and documentary filmmaker Rosa (Saskia Reeves) sit anxiously in a rundown Bangkok hotel,things get interesting,depression drug deal with lead to a kidnapping of a child ,and the devils other work blackmail car chases and mayham like a good 70,s flick run on a saturday night."

Alex Garland fans...beware

Eric Olsen | Plainfield, IL | 11/22/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The Tesseract, the book, written by Alex Garland is the best fiction book that I have ever read. This film adapation, directed by Oxide Pang Chun, is LOOSELY based on the book. It has a similar setting, a run down hotel in Thailand. Similar characters, a drug-runner, psychologist, and street kids. But, not the same heart, not the same connections between the characters, and definitely not the same language. What makes Garland's books so wonderful is his masterful prose to describe a scene. Oxide Pang Chun's film does not do the same thing.

As far as those who have no knowledge of Garland's book, perhaps you might be intrigued by the non-sequential scene structure and the intermingling of the characters. For those of you were wowed by the book, do yourself a favor, and use the 96 minutes to read it again."

Garland original screenplays = good. Adapted Garland novels

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 09/08/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The Tesseract (Oxide Pang, 2003)

I hereby forgive Danny Boyle for taking Alex Garland's amazing novel The Beach and turning it into the piece of celluloid excrement that it became. The problem seems to be that Alex Garland's novels have a pathological fear of being turned into movies, because unlike The Beach, The Tesseract comes with a director (The Eye's Oxide Pang) and male lead (b.Monkey's Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who are absolutely above reproach and can simply do no wrong, and the movie's still... eh.

(I hereby thank all things holy that Garland's excellent screenplay for 28 Days Later... was not, in fact, based on one of his novels.)

The Tesseract is an interesting premise; the lives of four people (a drug runner, a psychologist, a bellboy, and an injured assassin) intersect in various ways in a disreputable Bangkok hotel. You know that Pang (who also directed the above-average action flick Bangkok Dangerous) is going to be able to do wonderful things with his home turf, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers could make reading Harlot's Ghost worth watching. Add in Saskia Reeves (Dune) and you've got a recipe for a blockbuster. Problem is, it never quite gels.

Pang, as expected, does in fact do wonderful things. (His use of repeated scenes from different angels to track the deeply confusing time element in the story is wonderful.) Rhys-Meyers, though he gets surprisingly little screen time for a male lead, acts as well as he always does. Saskia Reeves, who actually gets the most screen time (along with bellboy Wit, played by newcomer Alexander Rendell), also does a good job, although her part's not as well-written as is Rhys-Meyers' or Rendell's. The action is relatively fast, the camerawork is superb. So what's wrong with it?

I can't really tell you. It's the same indefinable thing (I refuse to blame Leo DiCaprio, who does have a good actor hiding in there somewhere, viz. The Basketball Diaries and What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) that made The Beach into such a crapfest. I cannot urge you strongly enough to read Alex Garland's novels; I urge you with equal fervor to avoid the movies based on them. **"

Nothing Like The Book

Alexander Scholten | Lae, Morobe Papua New Guinea | 12/12/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Not a bad movie but nothing like the book. Got a bit silly in places. Great for the Bangkok scenery. Fans of the book will be dissapointed."