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November 02, 2006
Cast Away
I don't think I'm giving much away to say that this is about a man being stranded on a desert island for years. In a way, the first section of the film is a bit superfluous as we lead up to the inevitable plance crash. Slightly chubby Tom Hanks works out how to survive on the island; he grows a beard (see cover of DVD for this giveaway) and then loses his famous method actor paunch, along with a few of his marbles. During this time, he keeps his spirits up by thinking of his girlfriend Helen Hunt back home.
It all moves along in a bit of a formulaic manner, and would be boring apart from the spectacular camera work. We get a few scenes where the camera swivels around Hanks from all angles in continuous shot that look really amazing.
What we're all waiting for of course is to find out if he gets rescued. I'm not giving that away, but I will say I was a bit disappointed by it. There are two films here, and adventure story, and a love story, and I think the mixture of the two isn't handled quite right.
All in all, I'd say this was a good family film. It's not Forrest Gump , which Hanks and director Zemeckis worked on previously, but that was a true masterpiece.
***spoilers***
This bit complelety spoils the ending - you have been warned.
So, you have probably guessed that in Act 3, Hanks escapes the island and gets back home to see Hunt. When he was on the island he went almost completely nuts, talking to a volleyball as if it's a real person and seriously contemplating suicide. Once he escapes, he snaps back to being completely normal again - this is a bit unlikely I'd have thought. The most unlikely thing though is that when he finds Hunt is married now to someone else and has a child, he just walks away from her. In fact, the next day, he's chasing after the first girl in a pair of tight jeans that he meets. OK, there is a completely lame justification as to why she will be his next true love, but this intervention of fate, and also where the whale looks at him and practically saves his life, are unwelcome additions to what isn't supposed to be a fantasy film.
Posted by se71 at November 2, 2006 01:54 PM
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