| CAST AWAY |
 2000
- USA
Director: Robert Zemeckis - Reviewed by Tom
Tom Hanks gets called out on a quick trip to Tahiti. "I'll be right back..." he says to his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) as he runs to the doomed cargo plane. Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, they are flying through a nasty storm and the pilots are not able to contact Tahiti on the radio. Something blows up and falls off the plane (or otherwise causes a large problem), causing the plane to crash and immediately sink. Noland floats to an island smaller than Gilligan's and finds that he is stuck. This is where the movie really starts to get good as you see Noland trying to survive on the island. There is a long scene where Noland is trying to start a fire and it becomes agonizing to watch his frustration. He also makes use of the contents of the many FedEx boxes that wash up, and his best friend on the island becomes a bloodstained volleyball he names Wilson. The only dialogue on the island are the conversations between Noland and Wilson (which is amusing but very understandable considering the situation he is in). I won't spoil it, but there is a very funny/sad scene later on involving the relationship between Noland and the sports equipment. Four years later, Noland does get off the island (this is already known if you have seen the previews!) and returns to the real world to confront his old girlfriend, finding that things have changed a lot since he was missing and thought to be dead and gone. As usual, Tom Hanks does a fantastic job (I'm not the best at judging good acting, so some may not agree?) at playing Chuck Noland. Definitely the best parts are where he is on the island and we see him change from a plump FedEx manager to a shaggy, long-haired, skinnier, caveman-like guy who has adapted to living without a cell phone, pager and email. Something else you may notice in the movie is that on the island there is no music soundtrack, just the sounds of the ocean, wind and rain, which I thought was very effective. Of course being the sick person I am, I again comment on the plane crash scene. The crash scene looked ok, but the waves in the front windshield seemed to hang there just a little too long before the plane smacked into the water—a common thing for scenes like this. There is a creepy scene later involving a still-running jet engine, and another scene of the sinking plane that was very similar to the scenes in Titanic, White Squall and Perfect Storm of wreckage sinking into the darkness below the movie hero. I think these scenes just always kind of creep me out...<*squirm!*> Ewwww!!! In conclusion, I would say don't be afraid to spend full price and see this movie after 6pm if you like! |
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In
the latest Tom Hanks movie, Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a very busy FedEx manager
who travels all over the world. I think I would be frightened if I ever had a
manager who got as fired up as this guy did! The movie starts out like it is
going to be entirely a FedEx commercial (but I wonder how FedEx feels about the
plane crash where all the boxes are lost in the Pacific?).