Early in “On the Road,” Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) utters what might be the most famous phrase from the novel on which the film is based. Looking with awe at his crazy, cool, creative friends, he says the only people for them are “the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

That partial line goes a ways toward capturing the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s novel of discovery. Sadly, the first feature film adaptation of the 1957 book doesn’t do quite so well. That’s not to say director Walter Salles hasn’t tried, and that he doesn’t, now and then, succeed. But he pays too much attention to the sensation of the novel and not enough to the soul.