Cast Away

Rating:
Summary: Aren't you wondering what was in the hidden package?
Review: On the Special Features Disc Main Menu Select "Video And Stills Galleries". Then, Highlight "Raft Escape" and press Left. This will Highlight a hidden "World Of Time" logo. Select it and the director of the movie will tell you what was in the hidden Package.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Review: A reduced cast, great crash scene, and good acting makes this a movie that has been reduced by one DVD at Best Buy.

Tom Hanks, once again, makes a great presentation as a castaway on a deserted isle. He keeps himself sane by making a best friend... one that we all wish we could have, that never talks your ear off, talks back, agrees with your every idea, never criticizes or judges you... a volleyball. Simply blissfull.

I call mine Spalding.

Great movie, and worth a DVD purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly boring ...
Review: Tom Hanks is a great talented actor. No doubt about that. He's great in Forrest Gump, Sleepless in Seattle, Big, Apollo 13... and lots more. But Cast Away is a waste of talent, seriously.

The story is about Tom Hanks as a Federal Express officer who was very dedicated to his job. One night the flight that he took crashed in the middle of nowhere and he was the only survivor. And for the remaining of the movie, we'll see Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball named Wilson and making fire. He managed to get lots of stuff by opening the sealed packages that were to be delivered if not for the crash. Strangely, he spared one for no clear reason. I guess it was done so for the ending.

The movie started well, but lost its direction. Some people may be able to endure watching Tom Hanks alone on an island for a couple of hours, but most people will find it dead boring.

Story apart, the discs are well packaged, but I could not see why one wants to watch the movie more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping Entertainment
Review: This mainstream stuff generally makes me balk, but Cast Away isn't half bad. It is excellently made, and makes for a wonderful evening's entertainment. The special effects are superior and convincing, especially the crash scene. All credit to Zemeckis for not launching into the crash too early on in the film, too.

In fact, it is fitting that this movie is so well-paced, since it is a movie about time - its effects, its value and its dangers. It is a theme which is often delicately weaved into the plot, but at other times shoved in the audience's face with little subtlety. Nevertheless, it provides for much drama, compelling and often genuinely moving.

Rating:
Summary: Castaway
Review: Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump), Castaway is the story of Chuck Noland, a man who lives his life by the clock, doing his job as a courier, whose life is changed when a plane trip to see his family turns into a struggle for survival. Tom Hanks reunites with director Zemeckis after Forrest Gump and gives another amazing performance, alongside his co-star, Wilson, a vollyball that gets washed up in the wreckage from the plane crash. And this is where Hanks' brilliant performance shows, with the slowly building friendship that Chuck has with his vollyball buddy.

Zemeckis' direction is strong and well-handled when events are on the island; witness Chuck's discovery of the dead pilot, his attempts to start a fire, and a truly wincing moment where he does some DIY dentistry. The fact that Hanks can hold his own as the only guy on the island for two hours (albeit with Wilson) is a true testimony of his unique talent.

The problem is, once the film gets to the end, events get tiresome, where we are greeted with far too much exposition , and after a while, you start to get somewhat weary of the over-wrought sentiment. But it's at sea where the magic is, and despite it's flaws, it is an impressive adventure.

Rating:
Summary: great movie...absolutely loaded DVD
Review: Cast Away is a movie that makes you take stock. What if all the stuff we're used to in our lives vanished tomorrow? What would we do if we were cut off from everything we know--all our comforts, all of our routines, and even the slightest human contact?

This movie deals with all of these questions while at the same time doing away with the "stranded in a tropical paradise" cliche.

Cast Away is also a very fine movie. Tom Hanks is the finest of actors. His work with Robert Zemeckis will no doubt set standards for an actor/director duo that will be hard to even approach. Hanks must carry this picture all by himself for well over half of the screen time. That he does so with seeming ease is not only a credit to him as an actor, but is also the mark of a truly great director.

This DVD version of the movie is very attractive. A double disc package, it does not skimp on extras as some movies (Harry Potter comes to mind here) have. The best parts are the feature on survival techniques, a Charlie Rose interview, and the story of Wilson.

Zemeckis' commentary is also a big, big plus. There is so much more to this movie than what meets the eye. The commentary helped me catch a lot of things I would have otherwise missed.

I give Cast Away my wholehearted recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: Hanks survives; Zemeckis 3 for 3 since "Gump"
Review: Picture a young school-kid who has made a model of Camelot using wood and styrofoam. Picture the child as he or she happily walks to school, proud to turn his/her work into their history class for the eventual top grade. Now watch as fate intervenes as the child trips on an uneven curb, sending the model crashing to the ground. The child cries and sobs...and then looks up to see the model is still VERY much intact. The only thing the child DIDN'T super-glue to death were the little action-figurines used to portray the inhabitants of Camelot...and a tip of Arthur's tower is slightly wrecked.

It's fixable...but why go to the trouble when 99 percent of the project is very much okay and ready to present and will knock the socks off of all the other kids who used a simple shoebox to present the Round Table room???

This is the case for director Robert Zemeckis. Even though he sometimes stumbles, his stuff is still fun to watch. And it's because of beautiful special effects a very real(and VERY Oscar-worthy) performance by the ever-dynamic Tom Hanks, and a(mostly) smart script.

CASTAWAY is the story of Chuck Noland(Hanks), a systems-engineer for the FedEx company(methinks FedEx had to be paid a TON to both sponsor the film and portray one of their delivery jets crashing and losing thousands of packages). He's obssessed with time and things going the way they're supposed to. His relationship is what it is: Chuck and his girlfriend, Kelly(the overrated Helen Hunt in an understated performance) see each other in short bursts but are very happy with the agreement they have and actually SMILE at each other during their day-to-day meetings.

Then comes Christmas Eve and Chuck's leaving his girlfriend again, but not before presenting her with a small "proposal" to think about...(Hunt's "I'm scared" line is rattled off as if she's telling a waiter to add cheese to a hamburger she ordered.) He's off to personally escort a few packages(God knows WHY he has to do this but the script demands it for plot-movement) to their destinations by Christmas Day. This scene comes complete with ill-fated dialogue and the totally clichéd, "I'll be right back", spoken to Kelly(or yelled-to to be more accurate) by the equally ill-fated Chuck. I remember actually yelling at my T.V. set that you NEVER say that in a movie(see "Scream" and you'll know why) but what the heck do I know???

Once aboard, the pilots decide to avert a major storm by flying AROUND it...so much for THAT idea. The plane crashes into the South Pacific faster than a Randy Johnson-fastball and Chuck is outcast via a raft from said plane to a deserted island with no technology, no islanders, no Jurassic Park dinosaurs, and NO WAY TO GET HOME.

From here on, we get to watch Noland stumble around the island trying to obtain food, water, and shelter as well as an idea for how he's going to get off the island and get back to his life...all of which takes four years.

Now, before the nay-sayers comment that "this could have been really good" and call it BAD, I say that this could have been really BAD and I'm calling it good. It's actor Hanks and director Zemeckis's time and patience that pulls off the impossible(in their first re-teaming since "Forrest Gump"). Noland turns desparate as you see him go through the stages of becoming a survivor(fear, anger, acceptance, etc.), befriend a volleyball(which he paints a face on with his own blood and even goes so far as to implant "hair" using twigs and what-not), create fire(in a frustratingly funny scene), and spear fish and crab for edible goods.

I've read both sides of the debate on this film and I'm caught in the middle. I think this movie is successful. Robert Zemeckis makes a film that touches you not so much on an emotional level(not even the stupid volleyball evoked a sniffle when we witness its fate), but on a philosophical level. Before Hanks hits the island, he's a hurried man who rushes everything and yells at the top of his lungs. After the island, he's transformed into something humbled. You would think he would have trouble accepting his new life after he gets back home...but by now, it's so easy to him. Chuck has survived the hell of isolation and pain by himself. He makes his decisions without sadness, without angst, and with much acceptance. It's the primitive equivalent of "2001: A Space Odyssey".

Yes, the film's point is EXTREMELY heavy-handed: "time is important so make the most of it" and blah, blah, blah...but Zemeckis has such a wonderful way of softening the hand that's slapping you in the face(just like he softened it for "Gump" and the soft-spoken "Contact"), that it's easy to take. His use of sound and the decision to NOT use Alan Silvestri's understated and gentle music score during the island-scenes was the perfect choice. In my opinion, scoring the island-scenes would have dumbed the film down.

Not a great film, not a horrible film. "Castaway" is a good film that shows you one man's accelerated journey through life in which he learns the true meaning of becoming a mature human being.

(A couple of notes here: the "winking-whale" effect comes off as silly and why doesn't search-and-rescue follow the trail of loose-drifting packages since most seemed to end up on the isle with Chuck???)

--Matt

Rating:
Summary: DVD review
Review: Most people know what this movie is about - even before they saw it they knew what was going to happen. So with that said let's talk about the DVD of Cast Away.

The DVD gives you just the right extra's to make watching the movie again well worth it. The Documentary about survival techniques and how the director of the movie went throught the survival program was awesome and really showed why the movie was made the way it was.

The Featurette on Wilson is funny and surprizingly informative. And the casting of the island was interesting, but not really needed in my opinion.

But the best extra was watching the interview with Tom Hanks. He really presents himself in a way that makes you want to watch any other Tom Hanks movie again.

And although I really liked the movie and enjoyed watching it without the Director's Commentary Track, having the Commentary Track was great for this movie. It was well organized to fit the what part you were watching and with so much quiet time during the movie it helps to understand what they were thinking when they made it.

Overall this movie is a great buy on DVD format and well worth a rental or a used price in owning it.

Rating:
Summary: If AMPAS knew any better: 2000 Best Actor: Tom Hanks
Review: Tom Hanks give an explosive and nearly solo-performance in this riveting film from Robert Zimeckis, the Oscar-Winning director of "Forrest Gump"
A simple plot, a Fed-Ex worker's plane crashes to a remote island and he must find a way to survive until he is found.
Big, whoop, it's so much more than personal survival, constant symbolism, underlying meanings of the everything from the title to Fed Ex's motto "The World on Time".
And anyway who stings Hanks for crying over a volleyball could not of understood the film. Yes, it's a volley-ball painted with blood named Wilson, but just watch the film again, and find more to it.
Helen Hunt gives a superb performance as Hanks' wife. That's about it.
Simply, Crowe was good, Gladiator was ok...but Hanks.....when was the last performance that was to the magnitude of this? The fact of whether or not he survives the island is not the point, there is so much more....the middle part of this film (him on the island) was the last part of the movie that was shot....all the physical and mental that Hanks had to go though for this role should have earned him the Oscar.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: i liked this movie and, surprisingly--since i'm a big fan of music--i really enjoyed the huge section while he is on the island where no music was being played. it gave a great sense of being away from civilization.

i think that the film did as well as it did was that everybody had Survivor fresh on their minds and they were still excited about someone being trapped on a deserted island. Great work Tom Hanks for taking advantage of that and making a few extra bucks!

my one complaint with the movie comes at the end. (dont worry there is no spoiler here--the trailer spoils it for you anyways) that is my complaint. We already knew, going into see the film, that he would make it back. it was a bit of a letdown. the ambiguity of survival would have been better left hidden in a shroud of mystery, left for the viewer to discover as he went along on the journey. the ending just seemed anti-climactic.

but all in all, the film was great.