Good but left hungry at the end

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2016)

This is one of those films that seems to set up everything in the story for a massive emotional landing, with a lead actor like Tom Hanks, the same director as Forest Gump's, and this incredible journey the protagonist goes through... one could feel that something great is in the brewing process. But not really. Not at all, in fact. The very beginning is pretty boring up until the crash scene which is amazing, and much more intense if not brutal than one would expect of such a mainstream production while not being overdone either. Just a great cinematic moment on all accounts.
Then, it was very ambitious to make a film with such a main idea. The film goes on 2hrs25min, and the bulk of it does take place on that island. And yet it never gets boring and as an audience we're spontaneously mandated to participate in the adventure as being people ourselves we immediately relate to the great difficulty of surviving both physically, and mentally in such dire conditions. The film does a good job staying fresh from scene to scene, and not bordering on the purely depressing realm this easily could've dwelt in.
The problem is a highly forgettable final act, it's made clear at the end that there isn't any of that earlier high promise that will be fulfilled and a very ordinary and flat-out weak, if not also ambiguous and unclear in itself conclusion to a story that seemed to possess immense potential on an emotional and human level. Some elements that seemed important get a very plain and often disappointing resolution in the ending narrative, and one really would've wished for a much stronger depiction of the protagonist's relationship with his dearest love of his life, something of a deeper kind with parallels back and forth between his current, hindering life and the one he longs to get back.