Marval Movie

Back when Johnny Depp was living with Hunter S. Thompson for Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas he uncovered the manuscript for The Rum Diary, he read it and told Thompson that he had to publish it, Thompson said yes and that they should make a movie out of it.

It took Johnny Depp over ten years to get the Rum Diary onto the big screen. I love both the movie and the book Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and later became a big fan of the book and got excited for the movie adaptation. Sadly the hangover outweighs the party.

Johnny Depp is back as the Thompson character Paul Kemp, who is Hunter who hasn't discovered drugs but is very well acquainted with booze. He has the Thompson voice down, down beat with a mumble vibe.

The movie is not a direct adaptation of the book but it try's to stay close to the overall story arc and that's fine, but the plot eventually looses all sense of focus and goal especially during the simpulan act. Writer Directer Bruce Robinson is a former alcoholic so he would be the natural choice for the movie and he does do a good job in most scenes.

The hangover scenes are the best captured but then you realize it isn't fun to have a hangover. The drunk scenes are a little hit and miss, some put you in the mood of a party while others just make you feel as if your the only sober one in a room full of drunks. The scenes with the unimaginably attractive Amber Heard as Chenault are also some of the best, she encompasses the old 1950's femme fatal persona and her attractiveness only helps, but in a few key scenes it doesn't go as far as it does in the book which i felt diminishes the material and there wasn't enough of her especially considering the great sexual tension between her and Johnny Depp.

There are a wide array of supporting characters as you'd expect but they all either suffer from being one dimensional or too quirky to believe they are real or relate to them. Michael Rispoli is pretty good as Sala giving a very beat shaggy quality as well as being a good sidekick character and having a few funny lines. Giovanni Ribisi as Moberg is a burnt out drunk stoner and that's all there is he wobbles around blurts out his lines and has a Hitler record, the only merit i can give to this performance is that through all his unpleasantness i didn't hate him, for whatever reason. Aaron Eckhart is a convincing bad guy wearing only clean whites but his business is very dirty but his turn form charming salesman to flat out jerk is way to sudden.

To the movies credit it is shot on Puerto Rico in the town of San Juan where the book is set and it looks gorgeous. Puerto Rico is shot with great love for its scenery, the beaches and the forests are well photographed and there is a real feel of heat, as well as throughout i had a real craving for some rum.

Overall Kemp and his drunk rampages are either a little flat or just tedious, most of the characters need to be deeper than the bottles that they drink out of and the film never reached the crazy level of excitement that i was expecting and that the source material demands. The Rum diary gets more right than it does wrong and it is nice to look at and it gets the feel of both having a party in a tropical island and waking up the next morning realizing that the ride wasn't worth the ticket.

Rating 2 1/2 stars out of 4