Books that Don’t Work as Movies

I just watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time, believe it or not, although I read the book a long time ago. It was about what I expected, and reasonably entertaining, but not a great film.
A few weeks ago I watched On The Road, or at least a little bit of it. Good Lord, what a ridiculously boring movie.
The fatal flaw is the same in both of them. The appeal of the books was in the brilliant writing (I wouldn’t so much call it stream of consciousness as a flood of consciousness, an outpouring, a rant) and not so much in the plot. A movie needs a plot. With On The Road, the whole plot is a couple of guys hitch-hike around America, do lots of drugs and drink lots of booze and listen to awesome music, and have sex with women and steal cars. The main plot of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is two guys do an absolutely insane amount of drugs and go to Las Vegas.
The thing is, it’s a lot of fun to do lots of drugs, but not really anything special to watch a film about people doing lots of drugs. As I said, the books were great because of the writing.
I give Fear and Loathing a 4, maybe a 5 out of ten. I give On The Road nothing.