CAST AWAY

2000

"Robinson Crusoe" for the cell-phone generation! As a concession to political correctness, or else to appease some overly-sensitive African-Americans in the audience, "Crusoe's" black native named Friday, has now become a white volleyball named Wilson. Enough about the Robinson Crusoe analogy; let's talk about "Cast Away." At almost 3 hours in length, this film is way too long. The first and last quarters of the movie are similar in tone...contrived, soap-opera, corny...like a one-hour TV program. In these parts, Helen Hunt is window dressing. The middle (the stranded-on-the-island part) is the heart of the film. Here it's a Tom Hanks one-man-show, and he does some of his best acting to date. Still, it's much too long, and it becomes tiresome, exhausting, and even boring. Fortunately for the Hanks character, but unfortunately for the audience, he's eventually rescued, and it's downhill from there.

3 Stars

NJB

The re-teaming of actor Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis to make a movie about a man stranded on an island seemed like a great idea to me. If anyone could make it great, they certainly could. Instead, what they have delivered is an inconsistent, meandering film that never seems to really find a logical (or interesting) path. Hanks plays a time-obsessed FedEx exec who leaves his much-neglected girlfriend, Helen Hunt, on Christmas eve when work calls. On route to Malaysia he survives a plane crash and is left stranded on a small island... for FOUR YEARS! We see Tom learn to survive by gathering fresh water, making fire and eating whatever possible. Fast forward to four years later when Tom builds a raft and sails far enough for a cargo ship to pick him up. While the point of this movie seemed to have been a man finding himself and overcoming impossible odds for love, it never really proves itself. Even though this was a long film (2.5 hours), too much seemed to have been left out. Fine acting by Hanks and some humorous moments kept me interested. I kept feeling like it would all be tied up neatly in the end, but it never really does and I think a lot of people, like myself, are going to walk away very disappointed. I'm not entirely convinced Zemeckis ever actually WATCHED the final cut of this film.

2 Stars

CDF