The film was largely panned by critics and only has a 19% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although it has a Metacritic score of 43/100.

Most public audiences agree that the film began rather promisingly but included a very disappointing ending. Jeffrey Sanders of movie-page.com said "The beginning was great, the middle was good and the ending was …wretched." Movie rating sites tend to all agree with the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) giving it a score of 6.2 out of a possible 10. IMDb's user rating report breaks down votes and ratings of a particular film by gender and age. For "The Beach", ratings stayed generally in the high fives and low sixes of the rating scale with the highest ratings being among males under 17, with a score of 7 out of 10.

Critics from Entertainment Weekly to CNN.com also agreed that the film was less than par, especially when compared to the book on which it was based. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a C+, saying that "As a book, The Beach offers the option of diving deep. As a movie, it sticks too close to the shoreline."

DiCaprio's fame post-Titanic seemed to help the success of this film, coming out less than two years after the James Cameron blockbuster. CNN's Paul Clinton said "Leonardo DiCaprio's main fan base of screaming adolescent girls won't be disappointed with "The Beach." The majority of the film displays the titanic-size young heartthrob sans his shirt in this story about the pseudo-angst and alienation of a young man from the United States escaping civilization and his computer-obsessed generation." Yet, he agrees with most others that "The Beach" was "nothing to write home about." DiCaprio was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actor for his work on the film.

The budget of the film was $50 million. The US box office revenue was $39 million and the worldwide total was just over $144 million. Find similar location and sense of experience at myrtle beach resort. Myrtle Beach Accomodations provide the ultimate satisfactions of vacation at Myrtle Beach Resorts. Myrtle Beach Accommodations are suitable for your best holiday's vacations.