A Creative Ending is Cast Away

Rating: 8/10 (29 October 2002)

Tom Hanks talks to a volleyball on a deserted tropical island. He remembers his boy scout skills to start a fire. He developes a taste for raw fish, and becomes quite a tailor, seamstress and boat maker. It sounds like outlandish stuff, but Hanks makes it work for me, at least while he is on that island. The movie loses steam, and some creative writing once he gets back to the mainland. It is almost like one person wrote the screenplay on the island, and someone else wrote the screenplay when he is rescued. I followed the plot while he was on the island all alone. I expectantly hoped as he found ways to cope, survive and win against all odds. Back home again, people seemed harsher than the sea and its creatures. The final scene, in particular was really disappointing and a cop-out. As I viewed the final scene, I thought, "They get the Hanks character all the way to this junction, and this is all they could think of?" It was a uncreative finish to a imaginative movie.