FedEx: The Movie.

Rating: 3/10 (8 January 2001)

I rarely find myself going so far as to comment on a film here, yet after seeing the rave reviews this film has been getting, I found I could not help myself.
What people see in this movie, I am not really sure. Perhaps it is just the casting of Hanks and Hunt, or some bit of hype which has built up....
From the start one of the most annoying things was the MASSIVE product placement of FexEx through out the movie. Half of the movie was basically a giant advertisement for FedEx. You could see logos everywhere. The scene when Hank returns and is waiting to see Hunt and looks out the window to the parking lot to see her in a fit---with about 20 FexEx planes strangely in the background was especially bad.
And one knows since FexEx most surely paid a lot of money to get their name and logo everywhere and anywhere, that not a single harsh word (or should I say harsh even? perhaps not even a Realistic word) would be said against them.
As for the rest of the film, it seems the whole film is basically given away in the title: Cast Away. It is almost as if someone came up with the title and then proposed they make a film about it and some how found some way to Cast him away and bring him back, all nice and neat and pretty.
The period of time which Hank spends on the island is basically meaningless, and while he does struggle and learn, in the end nothing has really changed. He finally makes it back home, and some how returns back to "normal" life quite quickly with little readjustment. (if one was on a stranded island for 4 years, coming home would be one hell of a bizarre proposition).
The love interest seems to be included very much for the sake of simply having one, or at least giving Hanks something to DO when he gets back, with out which there would be nothing to show us.
So the film tries to give us the passion, but showing how much they still "love" each other-- yet god forbid they make an "immoral" movie where a woman runs away from her family to be with a previous lover-- So they attempt to show us that the desire is still there, but desire is grounded by practicality, and so life moves on (now that sounds pretty dull to me.)
In any case, there were a few scenes on the island I thought were interesting, yet over all I hardly feel this movie deserves the reviews it has gotten.