|
Advertisement |
Overall Rating
 Awesome: 32.67%
Worth A Look: 41.58%
Average: 14.52%
Pretty Bad: 5.94%
Total Crap: 5.28%
18 reviews, 195 user ratings
|
|
| Cast Away |
by MP Bartley
"Mother Nature's a bitch when you're on your own."
|
What would YOU do if you were stranded on a desert island? Enjoy the natural beauty of the world? Wallow in the luxury of total solitude? Walk naked on the beach with no fear of upsetting anyone? If you're like me, probably. But would you actually know how to survive by yourself with no power or even fire? What if you were suffering from agonising tooth-ache? And what if you were there four 4 years? They're the questions Chuck Noland has to answer.After a quick 20-minute background check on Chuck's (Tom Hanks) life introducing his soon-to-be-grieving fiancee Kelly (Helen Hunt), we're in the air as Chuck, a Fed Ex man has to hop on board a transport plane. Things don't go too well however and in of the most terrifying plane crashes ever put on screen, Chuck finds himself washed up on a deserted tropical island with no-one for company but some Fed Ex packages, coconut trees and the fishes and crabs. So begins a tale of survival and endurance.
How much can you get away with with only one actor and virtually no dialogue is a good question anyone could ask before seeing 'Cast Away' and the answer is quite a lot actually. What would seem to be very boring tasks of having to gather water, create fire, put together some tough walking shoes becomes riveting simply because this everyday stuff is the essence of life. Chuck can't ignore these very basic necessities, they're the things that keep him alive. And so the things we take for granted become the focus of the story and keep us hooked into Chucks extraordinary predicament. Critics of Hanks say that he just plays the everyman everytime and he certainly does here. But that's the key. How would an everyman survive in total isolation? Hanks manages to provoke some thought towards those questions with a captivating performance that convinces absolutely. You feel for him at the beginning and especially the end, you're discomforted by his mental fragility towards the end and he even manages to make a relationship between a man and his volleyball strangely moving. And when he has to undergo a makeshift dental appointment...you REALLY feel for him.
Zemeckis also does a bang up job. Generally I see Zemeckis as 'Spielberg-lite'. He's like Ron Howard, he can tell a story, but he lacks a truly distinctive style, and his films generally feel like something Spielberg would toss off in a quiet year. But here he makes the movie look beautiful with his camera prowling round the island, so much so that you're almost tempted by the hermit life Chuck is forced to live. And for virtually no dialogue, the sound of the film is lush too. The constant sound of the breaking tide and the wind through the trees makes this an experience you can really lose yourself in.
But it lacks the epic quality that would make it a truly great film. The jump from Chuck landing on the island to four years later is a bit of shock and feels too self-contained. It doesn't have the sense of sprawling time that perhaps a David Lean film would have. So while it's a shock to see a beardy and skinny Hanks, for the first time the film seems forced and not quite the natural progression of time that the first hour and a bit was.
The second common complaint of 'Cast Away' is that the ending is poor. This is initially hard to disagree with as it's unexpected, drags on for ten minutes too long and feels quite flat. But the more you watch it, the more you realise that Zemeckis has chosen the braver and ultimately correct path. It may not be the uplifting ending everyone's expecting, but it's the more realistic and deeply poignant one. So what may seem a messy conclusion is actually the more satisfying one.One man on an island with a volleyball may not have been the easiest pitch Zemeckis has ever had, but it's a good thing that he did. With repeat viewings what may seem an initially underwhelming experience, turns out to one of the most hauntingly beautiful and satisfying experiences of the last few years. While it can't quite get away from seeming like an extended travelogue, it's a refreshing break from the norm.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=4493&reviewer=293
originally posted: 05/19/04 00:27:20
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
 |
USA
22-Dec-2000 (PG-13)
DVD: 14-Oct-2003
UK
N/A
Australia
18-Jan-2001 (M)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
