A Good Movie Marred By A Very Weak Ending

Rating: 7/10 (15 July 2001)

I have to confess right off that I find the basic premise of this movie difficult to believe. I just really do not accept that with modern satellite technology, etc., there could be very many unknown islands anywhere in the world. True, the reason that Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, couldn't be found was that his plane had veered off course, and no one was looking for him in the area he was found in. OK. Maybe. But I still find it hard to accept.
Setting that aside, I enjoyed most of this movie. Tom Hanks showed again why he is one of Hollywood's best in what for most of the movie is a one-man show. He manages to hold the attention of the viewer as we root for him in his struggle for survival. Noland, a hard-driving FedEx executive obsessed with time and his work suddenly, after a plane crash leaves him stranded on an island, finds himself with too much of the former and not enough of the latter. The island becomes for him a school of hard knocks as he learns how to survive on his own with just the basics. Hanks does a great job with this part, and especially compelling is the relationship Noland develops with "Wilson" the volleyball - a relationship that brings forth both laughs and a few tears from anyone watching. Humour in a largely difficult movie is also brought forth by Noland's obsessive decision to sort the FedEx packages that washed ashore with him. I think this movie would have been much stronger if Noland had simply stayed on the island, and we had been able to watch Hanks work more deeply with this part of the role.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Unfortunately, he has to be rescued. And here's where the movie starts to unravel. Even after all the time he has spent on the island, Noland doesn't strike me as the type who could build a particularly good raft, and the raft he does build doesn't strike me as one that could stand up to the storms and wind and waves of the South Pacific. But it does. He gets rescued by a passing ship after being watched over by a huge whale. Noland then makes what to me seemed to be a very fast (4 weeks) transition to life after 4 years on his island, except that when he gets home he is absolutely transfixed by being able to turn an electric light on and off. (They had no lights on the ship for him to experiment with?) Noland returns expecting to be reunited with his fiancÃ© Kelly (Helen Hunt), only to find her married and a mother. Hunt does a decent job of portraying the confusion that would be felt in such circumstances, but the entire last half hour of the movie just seemed to be a pitifully weak ending to what had been a pretty good movie, although I get the point: just as Noland was cast away on the island, so is he cast away (by the woman he loves) once he gets home. (I have to confess that I was grateful that the movie didn't go for the sappy ending that we seemed to be heading for after Noland delivered his package.)
In the end, this strikes me as no better than a 7/10.