Tom scores again!!!

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2000)

Well, Tom Hanks does it again. He turns in a splendid performance that may very well earn him another Oscar. I'm not sold on that the film is "Oscar worthy" but worse performances and films have won before. Expect his popularity to help him to another victory.
Following the outstanding plane crash sequence -- which my wife leaned over to say "Wow!" -- Zemekis and crew do a great job. Tom, as Chuck Noland, flounders through the beginnings of abandonment and provides with a laugh here and there. One minute I'm ready to scream out "Use the belt", the next, I'm giggling at his cave scribble.
Even his physical transformation was amazing and I wish I had never seen the trailer, for this gave away too much information. It's during this sequence, "Four years later", that Hanks reaches that performance excellence which is similar to "Philadelphia." Absolutely great.

Lastly, the film really hit the home run ball when it didn't try to spoonfeed me an ending. Just like Tom's character, we are struggling to know how to feel. The comments I've read say that the writer didn't know how to end the film and they felt slighted by the ending. I disagree and "get" the ending.
So, in closing, "continue to breathe and see what the tide brings in."