Rating: 
Summary: Cast Away...
Review: I loved Tom Hanks- he is a superior actor and met the challenges of this role- look at his physical changes alone- just for this movie. Who else could carry that much time alone on the screen with nothing to talk to but a volleyball- put in for that very reason. I enjoyed watching the interpretation of the challenges he would face on a deserted island and how he survived. I was a little disappointed with how they brought him back- there was such a struggle to survive- only to be shoved in a hotel room with seafood on the table, loved that irony. I did not like what happens with Hunt's char. Kelly and Hanks' char. upon his return. I felt that if I had been in Kelly's position I would have fought harder to be with the man that she called 'the love of her life.' I don't just want a 'feel good' ending but I am not sure that they made the right call with that relationship. I know that if I had the oppurtunity to be with the love of my life after thinking he was dead I would have wanted nothing more than to be with him and everything else would have worked out around that. But then again- she is a mom... So much for coming home- only to be alone again. He had to face the challenge of re-entering society and after 4 years alone that is also difficult, I liked the scenes where they showed him readjusting to life with 'conviences.' I still think that overall it is an excellent film- one which everyone should watch! Makes you think about how much we have and how lucky we are to be alive- and how quickly that can all change and never be the same again!DON'T TAKE LIFE FOR GRANTED- NOT ONE SECOND! DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON TIME!
Rating:
Summary: Great acting
Review: What a great movie. Tom Hanks was brilliant. I couldn't get over how his character grew, changed and adapted right before my eyes. I was elated when he made fire and I was crying when he lost Wilson - how much more can you ask for? Great details, fantastic story, Oscar worthy acting.
Rating: 
Summary: KEEP THE MIDDLE -- CAST AWAY THE REST!
Review: CAST AWAY is a little slow starting, a great movie once they get Tom Hanks onto the island and then peters out at the end. In the beginning, it's a little tough to buy Hanks as an driven, time-obsessed, Type-A personality businessman, but he comes across well as a modern Everyman surviving on a desert island. There is a good deal of humor and a number of "Cool Idea!" moments. The ending deals with his return to civilization. Kudos for trying to show this readjustment, but the attempt to show CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT is heavy-handed and his situation on returning strikes me as unrealistic: Where are his friends and family? A good try, but a bit overambitious. There is a lot to be learned from a plain "stranded on a desert island" movie; no point is weighing it down with too much setup and conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Typical Hollywood third act prblems
Review: What could - and should - have been a triumph for Hanks is fatally ruined by one of the poorest third acts ever made. It is difficult to imagine how this happened, unless (as often) there was studio interference. See the movie as far as the end of Hank's raft voyage, then turn off the DVD and imagine how well the writer could have dealt with the main character returning to society
Rating:
Summary: Cast it away
Review: Here is a film aimed at the viewer who drives a late-model sport utility vehicle but wonders, on the occasional dreary Sunday afternoon after the football game, what his or her life "is really all about." Cast Away is, in its own way, a tribute to the human spirit of wealthy individuals, who firmly intend to go on making large sums of money, and who repeatedly assure the rest of us that material trappings are of no significance and that we should turn our attention to "higher things". The first scenes of Cast Away, oddly enough, take place in Moscow, where Hanks' character Chuck Noland is attempting to teach American corporate discipline and technique to a group of befuddled Russian employees. The film, in other words, begins with the spiritual and practical triumph of American global business, even if a certain criticism IS implied. The film also points to two of the critical pillars of current establishment ideology: the unfortunate persistence of religion and a belief in large corporations. Wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: FANTASTIC
Review: I HAVE TO SAY I LOVE THIS MOVIE. ITS SO BROUGHT TO LIFE WITH THE BEAUTIFUL SCENERY, TERRIFYING MOMENTS, SUPERB ACTING ONLY TOM HANKS COULD BRING, AND A LOVE STORY THATS REALLY SAD BUT TOUCHES THE HEART. HANKS AND ZUMEKIS PUT A SEEMINGLY OVERUSED IDEA OF A MOVIE TRANSFORMING IT INTO A TOTALLY ORIGINAL AND ENJOYABLE FILM. I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. NOTHING IS PREDICTABLE. ESPECIALLY THE ENDING. ...
Rating: 
Summary: wrrgghh!
Review: god, I hate this movie. it is so bad, boring, and uninteresting. just wanted to let you know!
Rating:
Summary: Strong acting, but some weak points as a movie
Review: It's hard to say enough for Tom Hank's acting. Not to mention the extreme physical changes he put himself through for the part. The storyline was also strong through the early and middle parts of the movie. Some truly great moments of drama and human insight. But the ending gave me the impression that they didn't really know how to wrap up the movie. It's a bad sign when the main character has to finish the movie with a monolog that sums up what he's learned; a better movie would have made you understand without having to spell it out in words.
Rating:
Summary: fascinating tale of survival
Review: From such established literary classics as "Robinson Crusoe" and "Lord of the Flies" to such products of pop culture idiocy as "Gilligan's Island" and the original "Survivor," the human imagination has been fired up by tales of ordinary folk being suddenly stranded on a deserted island and forced to survive by sheer wit, ingenuity and the unquenchable human instinct for self-preservation. Perhaps, those of us who have been softened by all the amenities we have come to rely on to get us through our daily lives wonder if we, ourselves, could rise to such a challenge. Whatever the underlying motivation, the lure of the theme is primal and seemingly universal, as evidenced by the recent popular successes of both TV's "Survivor" and the latest movie opus from Robert Zemeckis, "Cast Away." "Cast Away" is a film that works on several different levels at once - but surely the most impressive is the sheer physicality of the undertaking. This extends not only to its setting but the fact that Tom Hanks, during the course of the filming, underwent a change in physique matched only by Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull." Even more impressive is that Hanks delivers a tour de force performance, portraying a character who, for vast stretches of the film's running time, speaks nary a word and, hence, must convey his thoughts and feelings almost entirely through facial expressions and bodily gestures. The story is a simple one: Chuck Noland is a classic type-A FedEx exec (one wonders what tidy sum the company forked over for the benefit of this product tie-in to end all product tie-ins) who is clearly too focused on the split-second requirements of his hectic job to stop and smell the roses - or to formally propose marriage to his girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt). When his company plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean, Chuck, as the sole survivor, manages to wash up on a deserted island and is forced to make it on his own in this strange, forbidding world. Zemeckis and Hanks do a remarkable job making Chuck's predicament and his reaction to it believable and fascinating. We watch the step-by-step process by which Chuck attempts to bring order to his strange new existence - and the equally intriguing ways in which he attempts to cope with the mounting loneliness and solitude that will face him in the coming years if he is not rescued. "Cast Away" is filled with moments of surprising warmth and emotionality. The personal relationship Chuck establishes with a volleyball he names Wilson achieves a strange meaning and depth since it speaks to the great need we all have for companionship and love - even if we have to invest human traits into an inanimate object to get them (children, of course, do this all the time with their stuffed animals or imaginary playmates). The finale of the film rings true as well, for we know that, in our lives, fate often intervenes in ways we do not expect and that time truly does not stand still for any of us. The world marches on and, if, for any reason, we fall off temporarily, all we can do is to jump back on and try to catch up, painful as that may be at times. As it is, "Cast Away" is gripping, moving and fascinating to watch and it is a worthy entry in a genre that seems never to lose its hold on our imaginations.
Rating:
Summary: An awesome movie.
Review: I'm a fan of the whole "cast away from society, forced to survive without technology" theme of this movie. The acting by Tom Hanks is top-notch. It's interesting to watch his character develop throughout the movie, and the fact that he has few dialog lines through the main part is also interesting, and makes him focus the acting much more since he can't define the character through his words. The DVD extras are also awesome, and provide a good watching experience.
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