great movie

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2001)

I don't think I need to give a plot synopsis; I'm sure you know what it's about. Tom Hanks (as usual) gives another good performance. Seeing him struggle to live on the island, the film generates a good deal of sympathy, and you find yourself really feeling for him. The airplane crash sequence is intense. Helen Hunt was just her usual self, but she's not too bad. Alan Silvestri's score (what little there was, about 15 minutes or so, and none of it heard until the final half-hour) was effective. My only complaints: the final half-hour was a bit overlong, and I wish that instead of cutting from Chuck's early days on the island to "Four Years Later" that they had shown a montage or something to let us see what all he went through during that time, especially how he found a way to set up a calendar system using the sunlight in the cave. But that aside, CASTAWAY is a great film that, at 2 hours and 25 minutes, flies by like 15 minutes. Robert Zemeckis remains high on my list of favorite directors.