Rating: 
Summary: The Best Movie Of The Year
Review: In a year of very weak movies, "Cast Away" proves to be the best. The direction was excellent. Tom Hanks' acting was truly convincing, and at the same time amazing, not to mention how he spent years changing his physical appearance to best fit the different parts of his role. He is sure to get an Oscar nomination for this one.While the best part of the movie is his experience being marooned on a tropical island, the film also shows how much he and his life changed after being rescued years later. It examines the mind and behavior of Hanks' character, Chuck, while isolated from society and (for the most part) living creatures, and exhibits the natural necessity of every human to have some sort of companion. In Chuck's case this happened to be an inanimate object, namely, a volleyball. The film also points out how many unnecessary things we have in our society or possibly how much we indulge in these things without truly appreciating them. Surprisingly, the movie was not too overdone. String instruments aren't heard in every other scene to try and impact on us a false sense of emotion. One might argue that some parts of the movie are unrealistic or a bit of a stretch, but maybe we shouldn't always try to be so logical in our thinking. There isn't too much dialogue. If Chuck is talking, it's either to himself or the volleyball. However, through several of his words and actions, Hanks manages to incorporate a nice level of humor in with all the drama. The one thing that can be quite annoying as you watch the movie is all the advertisements (I'm already paying at least $8.50 to get in, aren't I?), especially FedEx, but I've taught myself to just ignore them and enjoy the movie. The ending has its predictable hint of Hollywood and could have been better if it went a bit differently, but this doesn't take much, if anything, away from the rest of the movie. Though it's not possible on amazon.com, this movie gets 4 1/2 stars from me.
Rating:
Summary: empty
Review: I really enjoyed the movie. But must admitt that I came away feeling empty. I kept saying "I must see this again to see what I missed." I just knew that I missed some hidden meaning. After seeing what could have been called the best movie of the year, I was truly disappointed in the ending. I couldn't wait to get home to call everyone that I knew who had seen the movie to see what I missed when I blinked. As soon as the movie was over I sat there stunned, asking my sister who was with me, "What did I miss" I kept thinking there must be a hidden meaning in there somewhere, what did I miss? I never left my seat but I must have blinked or something to miss what could have led to such a disappointing ending. Tom Hanks is fabulous, and I thought Helen Hunt did a good job. I am a fan of both.
Rating: 
Summary: A Modern Day Masterpiece!
Review: It was pretty obvious that Cast Away was going to be a sucess when it hit the big screen. With director Robert Zemeckis teaming up with actor Tom Hanks for the first time since Forrest Gump, movie fans had high expectations for this movie, and were not dissapointed. The movie opens by intorducing us to our main character, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a FedEx manager who lives his life according to time. We are also introduced to Kelly (Helen Hunt), Chuck's girlfriend. It is when Noland must take an unexpected delivery overseas that the action starts. Due to mechanical error, Noland's plane goes down, leaving him stranded on an island somewhere in the pacific. He must now find a way to survive alone, with no hope of being rescued. Noland must use what he has to survive, including the packages that were on the plane. A pair of ice skates suffice as knives, video tapes are used as rope, and a Vollyball, who Noland compassionately names Wilson, becomes his sole companion. Noland survives well, but after four years of solitude, Noland concludes that he would rather die trying to escape the island, than die alone. The basic plot was given to us in the previews; plane crashes, man survives, man finds tropical island, man tries to escape island. But until you see it, you never really know the whole story. You never see Chuck Noland's struggle to obtain water. You dont see his efforts to create fire or find food. And most importantly, you dont see the underlying moral; that sometimes being alone is worse than being dead. The screenplay is excellent, and Hanks had no trouble keeping the audience captivated for the two and a half hour long movie. Critics and fans will certainly agree that Cast Away is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: The Film Tom Hanks Will Be Remembered For...
Review: Of all the great movies I've seen this year, Cast Away is easily the best. There are so many little touches that it will take multiple viewings to catch them all, and maybe a lifetime to understand them. The casual mood of the film, with hardly any dialog or music, bring alive the sense of aloneness and loss of being a lone castaway on a deserted island. There is a good chance that Tom Hanks will win yet another Oscar for Best Actor, because this is his best work ever. He literally has to carry the entire film by himself, and he does it perfectly.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but the parts that it needed dragged it down
Review: Cast Away was a pretty good movie. Tom Hanks is a great star and did well in his role. Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a time obessesed FedEx executive who travels all around the world delviering mail. Helen Hunt plays his girlfriend, Kelly. But as you probably know, Noland's plane crashes in the middle of the pacific and he is the loan survivor. This is what you get from the trailer but although its a good movie, what I didn't like about it dragged it down. What Cast Away needed was a more focused beginning, and a less focused and drawn out ending. What we needed more of in the pre-island scenes was more time to show Noland's character a little more in depth and what his life is like so we could see him transform from that to what he becomes on the island. Then the island part of the movie. This of course was the best part. But in this part we don't get enough time to see Noland completly transform. We see him there for maybe a month and then cut to 4 years later where he is transformed. We needed more time on the island to show all the stages of what happened to him. And finally the ending scenes. This is where Noland must re-enter his life after being gone. We didn't need such a long and drawn out end. Some of the scenes were ok but some we didn't need. The film just randomly ends. Please don't get me wrong though, the flaws of the film are made up on the island scenes. The film features a different kind of acting task, since the island scenes lack a lot of dialogue. If you are a Hanks fan or fan of these types of movies you should see it. But I can't say I was amazed with it, but I can't say I hated it either. With a little work in the flawed areas this could have been 5 star quality. Oh and by the way I didn't like that fact that the previews gave away how long Noland was missing for. Rated PG-13 for violent and startling sequences.
Rating: 
Summary: Rather flat.
Review: This movie is over rated. It holds the attention but is not spectacular. Tom Hanks' performance and the whole movie is rather flat. Ever since Mr. Hanks started winning Oscars he doesn't seem to get into his roles but acts like he's acting with a lot of close ups of him supposedly showing emotion. One didn't get the feeling he was really attached to the volleyball but that he was acting as if he was. Contrast this performance with the one in "A League of Their Own". In that movie he "was" the drunken manager, not just acting "as if". The movie would have been a lot better if it had showed more of what his emotions were when he was on the island rather than just his learning how to live there. For example, it should have shown all the things he told his friend he had gone through instead of just telling his friend. This movie was one where the critics felt they had to like it because of who made it and who was in it.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Hanks Movie
Review: Tom Hanks is simply amazing. Director Robert Zemeckis(Forrest Gump) and Hanks have combined again and succeeded again. The film opens with Hanks, a Federal Express employee, in Russia drilling the Fed Ex employees there about better time management. His job for Fed Ex apparently takes him all over the place and leaves little time for his girlfriend played by Helen Hunt. Another assignment takes him off and while trying to avoid a storm the plane crashes. This is where the movie really gets going. Hanks lands on an island and finds himself completely alone. This turns out to be quite a compelling character study as he tackles the most basic of needs while trying to keep hope. Four years pass and Hanks is still there and he finally decides to leave. Unfortunatly as the previews showed us he makes it and then... Since Zemeckis decided to let the audience know ahead of time that Hanks is saved the only real suspense is whether or not he will get Hunt back. This does not really matter because the film is good one way or another. Hanks is brilliant. Very few actors could tackle a project like this and still keep it interesting and engaging, especially for as long as he does in this film. The island is definatly the best part of this movie and the rest is not as compelling. However it is a fantastic character study and one of the best films of the year.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but could have been even better!
Review: After seeing this film my first thought at the end of the movie was, "thats it". I thought it could have been a little longer to tell a better story. I'm not sure if it was the lack of dialog in the movie, or if my expectations were to high, but I was a little disappointed. I thought it could of been much better. Now, I'm not saying the movie is bad, its far from it, I'm just saying I was hoping for more. Tom Hanks gives an oscar worthy presentation once again, and its basically just him throughout the whole movie. I think that if film makers weren't constricted to how long they could make a movie, I think this would have been twice as long, that way they could of told a much better, in depth story. It felt like they cut corners in certain parts of the film, particularly with the ending.
Rating:
Summary: Cast Away
Review: Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a FedEx troubleshooter, who's charter flight crashes near the South Pacific, and leaves him stranded alone on an island for four years. While his fianceé and co-workers assume he's dead, he mustgive up everything that he once took for granted and learn how to survive both physically and emotionally. From director Robert Zemeckis, CAST AWAY is a story of adventure and discovery surrounding one man's will to stay alive.
Rating:
Summary: Another Gold Man for Tom?
Review: It's been a disappointing year so far for Academy Award-caliber movies and performances, but you can always depend on Mr. Reliable--Tom Hanks, who else?--to start whispers of an Oscar just before the close of 2000. I was lucky enough to see an advance screening of "Cast Away" and I'm determined to start the positive buzz about this film as quickly as possible. If you've seen the trailer or watched the commercial, you know the plot: after a terrifying, white-knuckle scene of a plane crash (more harrowing than "The Perfect Storm"), Federal Express time management expert Chuck Noland gets marooned on a desert island. In less capable hands than this simple plot would have devolved quickly into gung-ho adventure or broad comedy, but Hanks has the subtlety and range to elicit groans of sympathetic horror at his plight as well as laughter over the ridiculous nature of his predicament. The film brilliantly becomes virtually a silent movie for an hour, largely free of spoken dialogue and without music, as Chuck's struggles to survive become exercises in failure, discovery, success, and physical pain. As years slip by and pudgy Chuck turns slim, bronzed, and an expert hunter, he slips into an apparent madness, obsessed with a blood-faced volleyball (named "Wilson") that is his only companion on the island. It's Hank's off-handed but sincere talent that makes this concept sympathetic instead of silly, and he has the acting gifts to convince us he's not only not gone crazy, he's remaining desperately sane in the only way he knows how. It's not a perfect movie: the beginning drags (I found myself thinking, "Oh, get cast away, already!) and the inevitable bittersweet ending is much less interesting than the two centerpieces of the film, Chuck's first and last months on the island. A plot point involving an unopened FedEx package seemed unbelievable to me but inspires a nice Frank Capra-esque moment at the conclusion. But if only for the scenes on the island, Hanks deserves an Oscar nod for his acting--uncluttered by swelling music and clever dialogue--and for showing us again that he is indeed one of the most versatile and sympathetic character actors of our generation.
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