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Cast Away (Single Disc Edition) Customer Reviews (55 - 57 of 86 Reviews)

As their family sits down for Christmas dinner Chuck is sent out on another business venture. Leaving on a ill-fated plane, which crashes, Chuck must put everything he knows to use as he is stranded on a deserted island. You will feel this movie deep down.

From the diffrent hard ships Chuck must face all obstacles in the riveting look at how one man beat all odds. As obstacle after obstacle Chuck meets up to the challenge.

If you loved Forrest Gump, your in suprise for another superb film by Robert Zemeckis, as he teams up once again with Academy Award Winner Tom Hanks. A film that will touch your heart and elightened your soul!

I have seen it 11 times and counting!

Can Hanks Make a Bad Movie?
I did not want to see this movie. Even though it stars Tom Hanks, quite frankly, it sounded boring as all get-out. And maybe it could have been, with any other actor.

Who else but Tom Hanks can create and sustain a deep and personal relationship with a volleyball upon which he has drawn a face? Who else but Tom Hanks can nearly drown on a crude hand-built raft in high waves, looking for that same volleyball, calling its name and sobbing uncontrollably? Who else but Tom Hanks can have you sobbing with him?

I won't review the plot here, since so many other reviewers have done so--and done it well. What I want to concentrate upon is Hanks' truly extraordinary acting ability. As we watch him change from cocky Fed-Ex manager extraordinaire to severely shaken plane crash survivor, to a marooned castaway on a desert island, we are drawn to him simply by the look on his face. Hanks moves from fear to frustration to anger to illness to vulnerability to joy to fear again...all the human emotions, conveyed seemingly effortlessly from a set that we know provided endless hardships for cast and crew.

There are innumberable scenes that are unforgettable for the sheer strength of his acting: the above-mentioned grief over Wilson the volleyball is one; the tooth-pulling scene is another; his joy over catching a fish...there are just no words to accurately convey how brilliant this film really is. My advice: see it for yourself. It's an experience you won't soon forget.

Hanks Superb, Movie So-So
Cast Away reteams director Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks for their first film together since the Award winning Forrest Gump. The film tells the story of a Federal Express employee, Chuck, who is stranded on a deserted island in the South Pacific. He is forced to use his wits to survive. The survival scenes are sandwiched in between Chuck's life in Memphis pre and post island. The pre-island scenes show Chuck as a time obsessed man, whose main goal is to make certain packages arrive on time. He shows off his tyrannical devotion to time in the movie's opening scenes where he is training people at a new depot in Moscow. Back home for Christmas, we meet his girlfriend, Kelly, played by Helen Hunt. On Christmas day he is called off again and he promises Kelly he'll be home for New Year's Eve and at the airport they exchange gifts. Kelly gives Chuck a pocket watch and amongst his gifts is an engagement ring. On this flight, the plane encounters turbulence and goes down. The crash is a fiery spectacle that shows off Mr. Zemeckis' skill as a director. Chuck is the lone survivor and he washes up on the island. Armed with only a few items (ice skates, videotapes) from Fed Ex packages, he forced to adapt to live on the album. His lone companion is a volleyball he names Wilson (the ball's maker). Wilson is really an extension of Chuck himself as his "face" was created a bloody palm print of Chuck's own hand. It is on the island where we see the acting skills that make Mr. Hanks the best in the business. Through his struggles to make fire, eat, drink and eventually build a boat to leave the island. He literally all by himself, with only Wilson to interact with. Mr. Hanks' draws our sympathy and we share in his frustrations. We feel his desperation and the scene where he kicks Wilson out of a cave and then desperately searches for him in the dark is utterly heartbreaking. After four years Chuck leaves the island and is rescued at sea. Upon his return to Memphis, he finds that he was of course left for dead and even buried. Kelly has married and has a child. In a tearful reunion, Kelly declares she still loves him, but they both know their relationship can't work. Cast Away suffers in the scenes off the island as they filled with movie cliches and are stiff. The scenes on the island are worth watching to see this generation's greatest actor shine.