Rating: 
Summary: Tom Hanks' best performance since "Saving Private Ryan"!
Review: When I saw "Cast Away" in theaters back in the winter of 2000, I thought to myself on how brilliant the film was, and how brilliant the performance was from Academy-Award winner Tom Hanks ("Philadelphia", Best Actor, 1993). The filmmakers said that "Cast Away" was filmed in some parts of Memphis, TN, mostly at the FedEx complex, etc. This is pretty much the fourth film to be filmed in Memphis (the first three were John Grisham films based on his novels: "The Firm", "The Client", and "The Rainmaker"). The film focuses on a FedEx systems engineer named Chuck Noland (Hanks), who is obsessed with his job in which he comments: "we live and we die by time". Chuck has a beautiful life with his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt). When Chuck gets an unexpected call on his pager, he decides to take it. But after Chuck steps inside the airplane, it has engine trouble and crashes in the ocean. Chuck manages to survive the outcome of it and gets washed away to an island nearby. There he spends 4 years of his life fighting insanity by talking to a volleyball, in which he named "Wilson", and how he still manages to survive and figure out a way back home. Robert Zemeckis ("What Lies Beneath") directed this movie with lots of emotion and powerful storytelling as well. I purchased "Cast Away" in its 2-DVD set with lots of extras including behind-the-scenes footage, trailers, TV spots, commentaries, and more. But now, Fox Home Entertainment has re-released "Cast Away" again, this time as a one-disc treatment. And this time, you do not get all those extra goodies that are inside the 2-disc set, except for just commentaries, scene selection, and that's it. And, to me, that is just a cheap representation of the real thing (the 2-disc set). In other words, it's not good. But, all in all, this is Tom Hanks' best film since "Philadelphia", "Saving Private Ryan", and "The Green Mile". "Cast Away" is nothing short of being truly entertaining or emotional.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Acting By Hanks
Review: Too long, but it basically kept my interest, no mean feat for a flick with only I character, kudos to Hanks. Wilson was the best part.
Rating: 
Summary: Its Grrreat!
Review: I gave it 4 stars because I took 1 star away for its ending. I am a sucker for happy ending. The ending could have been done better...The crash scene was very well film. The acting was superb all around. The film was all Tom Hanks. He was either going to make it or break the film. Going with Tom, was the smart move. I was expecting more from Helen Hunt. Could have use any female actor to do that role and save some bucks there. It is a THUMBS UP! Got to have for your Tom Hanks' collection.
Rating:
Summary: A Different Kind of Movie.
Review: While watching CAST AWAY, a quote from another movie, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, kept coming to mind; "I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying." That quote sums up CAST AWAY. It is a movie about surviving and making choices.Tom Hanks plays Chuck, a Fed-Ex trouble-shooter who is so constrained by time that he plans dates with his girlfriend months in advance. Chuck get called on an emergency assignment and his plane ends up crashing into the ocean. Chuck is the only survivor, but is abandoned on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the film revolves around Chuck's quest for survival and his re-education in living. This is a Tom Hanks movie, make no doubt about it. He helped write it, produce it, and stars in it. However, if CAST AWAY was simply a Tom Hanks film and nothing more, it would have sunk faster than the drowning plane in the movie. CAST AWAY is unlike any other film I have ever seen. Most people are sick of their existance in life and go to movies to be entertained. This movie is entertaining, but it's not just an entertainment film. This is a film that was made to make people think. The movie explores man's existance and forces one to ponder the important and not so important things of life: what truly is important in life? What do you most revere? What makes a friend? How strong is love? These are all questions that CAST AWAY forces one to examine. But the most important question of all is whether to get busy living or get busy dying.
Rating: 
Summary: On the beach with Tom and a soccer ball
Review: Many viewers were blown away by Cast Away, but I was not one of them. Much of the enjoyment of the movie depends on whether or not you are a Tom Hanks fan. I'm not all that impressed by him, and I assume that puts me in the minority. I believe the terms 'actor' and 'star' are not interchangeable. There have always been stars who are also consummate actors; however, one does not need a broad range of acting skills in order to be a star - or, for that matter, to win awards. Hanks is a star of the first magnitude. He can 'open' a picture because his legions of fans are going to flock to anything he is in. He likes to be in different kinds of movies, but, no matter what he is in, I am always aware that I am watching Tom Hanks. This time he plays Chuck Noland, a revved-up, stressed out manager at FedEx. He flies all over the world helping to make the package delivery giant ever more efficient. He is obsessed with time. It is Christmas, and he is about to ask Kelly [Helen Hunt] to marry him. Even this important moment is interrupted when he is called away for yet another flight to solve another company emergency. This time he doesn't make it. The plane crashes in the South Pacific, and Chuck, the only survivor, manages to make it to a deserted island. He is trapped in a place where time becomes irrelevant. Even his watch doesn't work. His survival tools are limited to a motley assortment of FedEx packages that washed ashore with him. Now he must learn whether or not the survival skills he honed in civilization will have any use in a place where civilization has no meaning. The production values are high in Cast Away. The plane crash, for example, is terrifyingly realistic and filled with first-rate special effects. Its the high point of the movie, but I don't think that's what its makers intended. The part where Noland is marooned on the island is well photographed and succeeds in capturing the character's utter aloneness and his descent into madness It is also a very long sequence, running nearly an hour and a half. After a while, there is only so much you can do with a character who has only a soccer ball to talk to. It was so long that it gave me time to think about how I was watching a very rich star doing a good impression of someone trapped on a deserted island. I began to picture Hank's big air-conditioned trailer and the mounds of gourmet food that lurked just out of camera range. Anyone who saw Cast Away's trailer knows whether Noland makes it off the island or not. For those who did not see it, I won't give away the ending. I will say that it is one the oddest and least inspired ones I've seen in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Vote This Video Out Of Your VCR
Review: Tom Hanks is a great actor, but watching him talk to himself for all that time almost made me wish he had hung himself in the movie, which should have saved me at least a good 35 minutes of my life wasted watching this movie. It was a good concept, but the final execution of watching Hanks and Wilson the Volleyball survive all those years on the island to have the moral of the story be that time marches on whether your around or not...let's just say it was a letdown.
Rating:
Summary: The best movie Tom Hanks has ever been in
Review: Robert Zemeckis, Academy Award winning director for Forest Gump, and Tom Hanks, the Academy Award winner for Best Actor for Forest Gump, teamed up again for this epic drama. Tom Hanks plays a FedEx employee named Chuck who is stranded on a deserted island after the plane he was on crashes. Over the span of four years Chuck is on the island, until he devises a plan to get off of the island and return home. The drama between Chuck and his lone "companion", a volleyball he calls Wilson, is heartbreaking when he loses him at sea. In my opinion this is Tom Hanks' finest film, he should have gotten Best Actor instead of Russel Crowe, and the special effects when the plane crashes are great as well. Helen Hunt is wasted in her role as Chuck's girlfriend, and I would have liked to see more in depth of how Chuck's character develops on the island, and how he coped with the changes when he got home. All in all though, this is a great movie, and it shouldn't be missed.
Rating:
Summary: You're watching a commercial.
Review: It is unfortunate that Tom Hanks gives such an excellent performance in such a huge waste of a movie. This is as much a commercial for Federal Express as it is a compelling character drama. The unrelenting product placement is too heavy handed and proved a major distraction from the story. I hated it! I give it two stars reluctantly. Both stars go to Tom Hanks performance, the rest of the movie is a waste!
Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER ONE FOR THE DVD COLLECTION!
Review: CAST AWAY is a great film full of heart and soul. The DVD gives you all the extras you want. Don't you DARE buy the single-disc edition. You won't get as much out of it as you do with this sprawling two-disc set full of extras that'll make you feel closer to Chuck Noland and Wilson! Grade: A+
Rating:
Summary: good
Review: good movie the first time but after having to watch it 4 times it gets kinda boring. the movie is very long and some times very tedious. It actually deserves more like a 3 1/2
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