well up with some tears and experience a moment of passing profundity

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2001)

Stories about being stranded on a desert island have an elemental appeal to the human imagination, so it seems appropriate that the premier spinner of high tech cinematic fables  Robert Zemeckis - would step up to the plate with his 21st century spin on the tale. Interestingly the title Cast Away is rendered as two separate words. Could this be a way to emphasize that the cast of the movie is away for most of the film. Perhaps it's because cast member Tom Hanks is also a producer and collaborator on the film, hinting that `cast away' may be a little like `anchors aweigh' where `the new' Hollywood launches another tale of Everyman for a politically, morally, and spiritually confused and transitioning time. It's time to take stock of ourselves in our high paced world. Who better to take us through that journey than the common man du jour, Mr. Hanks. Like Forrest Gump, or with anything featuring Tom Hanks or directed by Zemeckis, the film has quality and integrity. Life is struggle, we all go too fast, we don't value the really important things in life, love is powerful and enduring, fate works in strange ways, life is what you make it. Their themes are crystal clear, bordering on painfully obvious. That's OK, too, because great effects and fabulous scenery in service to good commercial filmmaking is virtuous and inevitably appealing, not to mention boffo box office. The three part structure of the film is therefor entirely appropriate. Those who feel the rescue section (I won't say what happens  just in case) doesn't work, miss the purpose of the storytelling. It is not created to make us leave the theater in an existential quandary, but to be entertained, well up with some tears, experience a moment of passing profundity, and briefly ponder a few big questions. Expecting the film to do otherwise is like having Johnny Appleseed sow his seeds across the America only to find out they never sprouted. The film's artificiality is part of its appeal. Perhaps that's why I find myself watching the credits until the very end. I needed to find out whether the large crab on the spear caught by the Hank's character at in the beginning of his island stay was real or animatronics. It was animatronics.