Great mass entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (22 July 2015)

The classic Zemeckis-Hanks flick. The kind of movie I knew was good from the first scenes, with the long tracking shot of a FedEx package, when the camera is glued onto it and the focus shifts on Tom Hanks' character. I was sold. And I'm not talking about the plane crash scene which was just impressive. Look at the track records of Robert Zemeckis (before the perfcapt movies) and tell me he's not a good director. The narration here works so well because it's always focused on something, mainly Tom Hanks, and never wavering, and all the drama is channeled through him. When you think about it, there's only 1 character for 1h30 of the movie (unless you count Wilson as a character) and it's never boring.
Only the end felt a little flat, Tom Hanks is basically mute, and we don't really experience how what he's gone through has changed him.
In the end it's basically a very well made and thoroughly researched mass entertainment movie, which of course has these little annoying 'merican narrative things (Tom Hanks is SO good at his job, he loves his wife SO much), but it moved me, so kudos.