Cast Away (Full-Screen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: unwooden Hollywood
Review: Greeting comrads. Whats all can be said. read Yugijouohs' stunning review here in this Amazon customer review section, and you can believe me, he be harsher than I would have been if i talk , but that's repeating, he has said all there is to say! But I'll toss my 2 lira - Helen Hunt is the cats pajamas for ME personally--as opposed to me impersonally haha eddu make funny--and if had known she was not going to appear in Cast Away, I would not have even gone to see it.As mia santa momma said , flattery is no pizza,...but I will smash that rule here. WHENEVER Ms. Hunt is on picture, the movie is EYECATCHING! Again, see Yugijouohs review for more "depth" , I only write to urge you, the last TWENTY minutes of this movie recall the label on minestrone soup cans when i was a boy- Mm Mm GOOD! Probably the best use of digital storage in this crazy filmmaking world. Happily, this is my first positive review on Amazon, and this kind of filmmaking must "be a shining city on the hill" like Ronald Reagan speech! I say, Stay away from bad foreign film, go see Hollywood..(you may learn english)! To say 1 negative thing, the scenery shots ARE boring & Hanks seems a very disengenous man. To believe this movie was hardly "test screened", I love that this type of movie ending is not what world "wants"(?) At most you cant turn your DVD off when Mr Hanks is rescued,the movie would get malto bazillioniano stars I give in the review. This is my best advice.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth owning
Review: In my opinion this movie isn't worth owning really. I meen for one I felt that the whole thing was totaly ripping off from the Hatchet which had a much better premis. Not to say that Tom Hanks isn't a good actor because he is but I felt it was missing something crucial that would have made it into a better movie. On a side note I think it would have been much better if it was more about how Tom Hanks character comes back after being marooned on the island and learning how to adapt back into civilization.

Rating:
Summary: We live and die by the clock
Review: While I will agree with many other reviewers:

1. This is an excellent performance by Tom Hanks
2. The story and performance transcend the need for constant dialog
3. This is a gripping tale of survival

I also think such observations miss the point of the film entirely.

While being literally stranded on an island is ostensibly the main plot of the film, the real intent is to use this as an allegory or metaphor for the immense changes that life often brings.

Told in three acts, Cast Away is the story of Chuck Noland (Hanks) a man entirely in control of his life (waiting on marriage, dating the right girl, good career, friends). Until he is unexpectedly standed. After years of waiting he is rescued by an angel's wings in the form a port-a-john wall. When he returns he finds everything he knew has changed.

How many of us have undergone similar transitions in life? Times when we seem to plateau or enter a dark tunnel and wonder if we will ever come out at the end. And when we do we find we have entered a world unlike the one we left. This is the real story of Cast Away.

Symbolism is used frequently. His girlfriend on the island is merely a locket picture. The pocket watch he checks so carefully has stopped. Other images or devices are repeated or used for effect (angel wings, fire, Wilson, Chuck's physical changes).

Perhaps I give the story too much credit, but I think if you watch it again (or for the first time), you might see a different film than you were expecting. And perhaps you can find some parrallel to a time in your life when you have been Cast Away for a time, only to return to a new and different life.

What more can you ask from a Tom Hanks movie?

Rating:
Summary: Robinson's Return.
Review: Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis teams again and deliver a nice film. It is not as good as "Forrest Gump" but is a very viewable movie.

The story recreates in some measure the experiences of Robinson Crusoe transposed to our times. A plane crash launches suddenly a FedEx executive on a desert island and leaves him all by himself. His options are very few and the abrupt jump from modern civilization to a stone age's environment is a harsh experience to be sure.
Chuck Noland, as his famous predecessor, stubbornly fights to survive in that precarious background. Worst of all the debris he is able to collect, are by far, less useful than Robinson's. Still he sticks to life.
The last part of the motion picture faces the watcher with a complex and heartbreaking dilemma.

It is not an easy task to keep the audience's attention with great part of the action limited to this barren surroundings. Nevertheless Tom Hanks gives one of his best performances, including a physical transformation, which took him more than a year to accomplish.

All in all it is a very commendable film for different audiences. Enjoy!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Rating:
Summary: Cast Away
Review: Cast Away is the superbly realistic and profoundly down-to-earth story of survival. It is the story of one man's struggle to survive four years of his life stranded on a desert island in the South Pacific. The story of castaway Chuck Noland is one of seeking to find the courage to face each grueling, life-threatening day after another in isolation, while fending off feelings of loss and hopelessness. All the while he is sustained by the hope that he will one day escape from isolation and be reunited with his wife-to-be (Helen Hunt).
Tom Hanks is compellingly superb and intensely down-to-earth in his role as Chuck Noland, a modern-day Robinson Crusoe who, through his experience, learns the true meaning of endurance and courage. His performance in this film is one of the best performances in film history in my mind.
To me, this film is similar to The Terminal, a film in which Tom Hanks also portrays fish-out-of-water character struggling to cope within an unknown environment in a seemingly hopeless situation. If you enjoy Cast Away, you'll definitely enjoy The Terminal, and vice versa; still, Cast Away is in my mind much more intensely authentic and compelling. It is a powerful insight into what it means to be a human under fire; an insight into what survival is all about. I highly recommend it. 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: This Ain't Gilligan's Island
Review: I can't offer enough superlatives as to how good this film is. This collaboration between director Robert Zemeckis and actor Tom Hanks is, in my mind, virtually flawless and a totally compelling viewing experience. Those naysayers who would dismiss this film should recognize what a challenge this film is. Zemeckis(and Hanks) are asking us to follow a story that asks us to follow the transformation of a man whose whole life revolves around punctuality and now finds himself with all the time in the world. Tom Hanks gives probably his most challenging performance to date. The scenes on the island where Hanks has few props to work with, if you count "Wilson" the volleyball, are just masterful. Hanks uses his consummate skills as an actor to pull us in and never lets go. Though this film was a box office success it received something of a lukewarm critical response. I would hope that in years to come when the careers of Hanks(and Zemeckis) are evaluated that "Cast Away" is recognized for the great film that it is.

Rating:
Summary: FedEx/Wilson Commercial
Review: Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt are good. If this movie had eliminated some of the commercialism and either stranded both of them or just Tom without a previous relationship with Hunt it would have gone further. Certainly more so than talking to a Wilson volleyball. As it is FedEx was overly thrown in our face and it also leaves a bad taste in our mouth when Hunt and Hanks don't get back together at the end. So along with being stranded on an island for years, poor Hanks has no assurances about his life or a relationship. Only a faint hint of a possible chance at one with the sculptor that drew the wings on a package he found on the island. I don't regret seeing it since there is some fine acting. I just regret I don't feel like viewing it again like I do towards other castaway movies like "Robinson Crusoe" and "Mysterious Island". This would have been a great movie for Hanks if they had just shown a little part of him working for FedEx, then stranded him on the island after the plane crash. Then use some interesting things on the island perhaps even a native like in Robinson Crusoe, and definitely skip the bit with the volleyball. Look how well the series "Lost" is doing because of the great acting and the suspense of what is on the island.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best movie
Review: Cast Away is a ok movie. Its about a guy who works for Fed-Ex and the airplane he is on crashes and he survies and lives on a island for 3 years by himself. The guy gets weird and talks to a volyball that has blood on it. Unless you like movies about people who live on islands alone dont watch Cast Away.

Rating:
Summary: Lonely in Paradise.
Review: This started out to be a good, regular movie -- and Tom Hanks was a handsome administrator of a nationally known company. The scene in Russia was fabulous with his proving his point that it takes much too long to deliver packages long distance, or here in America. He's an excellent actor, but as the movie progressed he regressed into a savage from a jungle. Not just the ultimate survivor on an isolated island somewhere no one else ever comes near.

I kept wanting some of the Gilligan's Island silliness to intervene with his deterioration mentally. "Wilson" was the substitute for a real companion, yet only a volleyball gone astray.

When I saw it was FedEx featured in this film, it delighted me as several weeks ago I wrote to the owner of a local radio station that maybe he'd never heard of FedEx. It was taking too long to get a part for the transmitter for his station which aired "Music Of Your Life" network. A few months previously, the same part was needed after a storm struck the antenna and it was 2 months or more before the network was back on local airwaves. This time, the part apparently was never ordered. So my reference to FedEx was not impressive to him as he owns a large sports equipment company in Nashville. No FedEx for him!

The preview to becoming a castaway was entertainment par excellence. Afterward, however, his character becomes a mental case and it was not easy to watch. Surely no place could be that isolated so as not to even have birds or animals, only a small type of fish and a scorpion which he ate -- showing he is the ultimate survivor.

If he'd been stranded in Iceland or the North Pole, the story might have been believable, but on a beautiful island in the middle of nowhere was just too much.

Thank goodness, he switched to playing character actors after that ordeal which suits him better anyway, for he is a good actor. The movie itself was not much and very little dialogue which made it almost like watching a silent movie from the olden days with the exceptions of his grunts and guttural 'help's.

Rating:
Summary: A WELL MADE MOVIE.
Review: "Cast Away" reunites once again the awarded team Zemeckis / Hanks, and once again they made a good film. There are several remarkable aspects in "Cast Away": overall the cinematography is excellent, the photography is quite realistic and Tom Hank's characterization is also great.

Robert Zemeckis and William Broyles (screenwriter) showed a lot of creativity by including the lovable character "Wilson", definitely a character to remember. "Cast Away" sometimes feels and looks so realistic that you really feel trapped in a lonely island with Tom Hanks. You will suffer along Chuck Noland (Hanks) loneliness and desperation.

Technically "Cast Away" is almost flawless, like all the movies directed by Robert Zemeckis, and overall the story is very good and realistic. However the movie also has weak spots: Helen Hunt is misused in a very lackluster role to Helen's standards. The first half hour of the movie elapses with few highlights, and the last half hour is kinda disappointing.

At the end of the day, "Cast Away" is a worthy movie. Specially for Tom Hanks' fans or Robert Zemeckis' fans.