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Cast Away

Cast Away

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tie Wilson Down Better Next Time!
Review: Movie Summary: Chuck Noland works for Federal Express. He kisses his fiancée goodbye on Christmas Eve to take a flight on a Federal Express plane. He tells her he will be right back, but we all know by the title of the movie that he doesn't keep his promise. Chuck's plane goes down in bad weather and Chuck washes up on a very small island with a few Federal Express packages. He spends four years on the island with a volleyball as his only friend until the ocean washes hope up on his shore.

My Opinion: There were three main parts to Cast Away. I liked the island part the best. It was the most intriguing and interesting. I wish there had been more to this part. I wanted to know more about how he spent those four long years. I would have liked to see him build things and deal with the solitude. The first part, although setting up the next two parts, was a little long. The last part was not as satisfying as I had hoped. Chuck remains a castaway even though there is some hope at the end. I enjoyed the movie but found it was only good, and not great.

DVD Quality: Widescreen anamorphic 2.35:1, DD6.1 sound. A complete second disc to hold all the extras which include trailers, featurettes, and documentaries. If you want to know everything about Cast Away, now you can. This is a very good DVD release.

What You Should Do: Buy it if you are a huge Tom Hanks fan or loved the movie in the theater. A rental should do for the rest of us.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tom Hank's performance does it again!!
Review: I was not sceptical at all when going to see this at the cinema as I have not disliked any of Tom Hank's films.

The story, while a little over the top, is quite straight forward, Hanks plays a federal express chief, who, while eating christmas dinner, has a call and has to jet off with some federal express parcels. Leaving his fiance (Helen Hunt) and telling her he'll be right back!!! Indeed!! The jet crashes in some remote area killing the few on board with the exception of Hanks! I must say that the plane crash scene is one of the finest i've every seen in a movie!!

Hanks, on a small life boat finds himself washed up on the shore of some island along with the dead remaining crew!! Hanks soon realises that there is no life on the island and not much food, he does make use of the washed up federal packages, not least making a 4 year friend with a volley ball named Wilson!! And so begins a fight for survival where he learns to catch fish make fires and even get a septic tooth out!!

Hank's performance definatley keeps the film going, and while there is hardly any musical score in the film its still entertaining stuff throughout. You can actually see in his face the will to survive, kept going by a pocket sized picture of his girl!! Another good aspect, is the impressive amount of weight that Hanks lost for the second part of the film - after being there for 4 years!!

Its this mix of drama with the action and aventure of the first part of the film that makes Cast Away a compelling watch!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome
Review: Great movie. Depspite long spans with out dialogue, it doesn't get boring

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: two movies in one.
Review: this is really two movies in one. unfortunately, neither of which really comes to fruition.

the first movie is about a guy with his priorities seemingly askew (work obsessed) getting a rude awakening to what really matters. except that this latter awakening never really happens à la *fearless*. instead after a gripping crash scene and the learning of a lot of survival skills, the metaphysical or spiritual awakening never occurs. which is too bad. it's a definite and noticeable void in the film. (the first film :)

the second film, well, that might be a spoiler if i saw too much, but needless to say it wasn't too well done either. it could have been much more fully explored, but seems to have been cut very short and it seems like the writers (which i guess includes Hanks) were sort of searching for an ending. and that's the way the movie plays out.

there needed to be more character development and better insights into human nature in order to really make this movie into something special. and unfortunately it didn't happen.

that said, Hank's acting throughout is marvelous, and it is still a compelling film - as in: what would i do in such a situation? . . . it makes you think :)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: How much did FedEx pay for this movie?
Review: Don't get me wrong, I had a great time watching it. Tom Hanks is fun to watch, the story moves along at a nice pace, and Zemeckis does a good job of getting you to care about Hanks and Hunt.

But come on, how many times did we have to see the FedEx logo??? I understand that Hanks' character works there, but they show the FedEx logo in virtually every shot for the first half hour of the movie. Sometimes they show you 4 or 5 logos in the same shot, it's like paying to watch a commercial. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked Hanks to wear a FedEx cap for the island scenes.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Wilson?!!!"
Review: Tom Hanks delivers another exceptional and emotional performance (Don't worry I'll back that up). The film is not perfect, but it would be silly to expect it to be. In the first act, you are introduced to Hanks' character, Chuck Noland, a Fed Ex engineer. We are given the idea that he is planning to ask Helen Hunt to marry him (giving her an obvious gift) but he decides to wait until he returns from his trip. He leaves for his plane exclaiming, "I'll be right back!", but that doesn't happen. His plane goes down and he (being the lone survivor) washes up on an island with nothing but his clothes, a load of Fed Ex packages that wash ashore, and an antique watch that Helen Hunt gave him just before he left. The second act, where the only life you see for a while is Hanks (I don't even think you see a bird or anything else until that whale), is the most compelling and memorable part of the film. His relationship with "Wilson" the volleyball is more believable than the one he has with Helen Hunt (there is also more chemistry between the two). I feel more sympathy when he loses "Wilson" than we he finds Hunt married with children. The ending is a little weird but what did everyone expect, after 4 years? Hunt's character single and waiting in front of her house for someone she attended a funeral for? The most important part of the film concerns his determination to stay alive on that little island, not his relationship with Hunt (Which, by the way, could have been played by just about any actress). I don't think that this is just having to endure Hunt in every other movie since "Good as it gets" talking either. There just isn't much chemistry between the two. It is not uncommon for Hunt to lack chemistry with a male character or for there to be some confusion as to why the male is interested in the first place (see Dr. T, What Women Want, etc.). I think she was cast due to her popularity in other films or maybe Hanks requested her. Anyway, the film is worth seeing (owning actually) for Hanks' performance and for that little volley ball that took on a larger emotional significance than any other character in the film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie,even better actor....
Review: I give this movie 5 stars because of Tom Hanks, his performance was extraoridinary. The movie and plot are good (4 stars) with pretty deep meanings that really touched me at the time because of a situation I was going through. Some people call this movie boring, well I call them shallow. This movie is deep, moving, and touching. It is by no means exciting except for the plane crash. If you want to see what should have been an oscar winning performance then you should watch this film. The majority of this movie is shot on the beach with only 1 actor and you are still enthralled. Enjoy it, I know I did.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: If you were expecting another Robinson Crusoe then this movie is not for you. This movie deals with the human aspect of being removed from everything you know and having to deal with not having the familiar around to keep you comfortable. If you are looking for exciting fights with the natives and constructing amazing devices from coconut shells and bamboo then you may want to go watch Robinson Crusoe or Gilligans Island. This was, I believe, probably a very difficult movie to make and probably even harder to sell the idea to a studio. Like I said earlier this is not Robinson Crusoe and you aren't given a lot of action to watch but what you are given is a look at just how man deals with what he's dealt. How many times have you found yourself having a conversation with ,well yourself, when no one else is around? Now take away all that you have and all your family and friends and, for that matter everything you have, how would you deal with it? A volleyball might just become a good friend. I don't think this movie would ever have seen the light of day if it hadn't been brought forward by such box office powerhouses as Hanks and Zemeckis and I don't know anyone else who could have pulled it off better than Hanks. So I recommend that you watch this movie but don't watch it for a survivalist action adventure flick watch it for what it is, a statement on the human condition and just how one man copes with what life throws his way.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Who edited this thing?
Review: The opening sequence of this film is basically a really long FedEx commercial. I'm sure FedEx is a fine company, and paid plenty to have their service so throughly worked into a major motion picture--starring Tom Hanks, even! I, however, feel pretty hostile about paying for said commercial. Sure, those initial deliveries tie into the end of the film, but I couldn't possibly care less about what happened to anyone by the end of the film.

I was hoping "Cast Away" would be about a man's struggle alone on a deserted island, both physical and spiritual. Nominally, it was. Unfortunately, I had to wade through the beginning (and sit through the end) to witness the little bit that I did see. A big red flag should go up when the character I feel most emotionally attached to and mourn the loss of is a volley ball. I mean, who cares if the wife of some FedEx guy (that we're supposed to remember from a couple of minutes of the tedious beginning) died while ol' Tom was on the island? Did it have ANYTHING to do with Tom's struggle? Did Helen Hunt, beyond being a picture? Did FedEx? If this wasn't about a man's struggle along on an island for four years, what WAS it about? I couldn't pay attention to those other bits long enough to figure out.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: In the Mind of the Beholder
Review: Cast Away (so-called because Nicholas Roeg had already used the title "Castaway" in a somewhat better movie), should have taken place inside the mind of Tom Hanks. Robert Zemeckis hadn't the skills to pull that off. So what we're left with are the physical details, daunting enough in themselves, I suppose. For me the best moment in this overwrought film was when Hanks has finally found a way to leave the island. He rows for all he's worth into the unforgiving waves, and looks back at the island that was his home for four, albeit terrible, years. Hanks manages to register enough requisite sadness at the sight of that island disappearing into a squall of rain to make the film almost a success. But then the script-writers took over. Tom Hanks is by now far better than the scripts he is submitted.


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