A fascinating failure, less than the sum of its parts.

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2000)

If ever a movie was less than the sum of its parts, this is it.
This feels like three separate films within a movie, and as the trailer makes it clear that the Tom Hanks character gets off the island, I don't think I'm giving anything away to say that this trio consists of pre-Island, on-the-Island, and post-Island.
The first segment is the best, with Hanks giving a charming and relaxed performance as a Fedex employee on the job in Moscow and at home in the States with friends. The plane crash that ends this preface to the story is brilliantly done.
The middle segment is itself divided once again by a "Four Years Later" flash-forward where we see the formerly chubby and clean-shaven Mr. Hanks now svelte and hirsute, and with his island companion Mr. Wilson. There's a memorable scene in a cave that rivals Marathon Man in its depiction of the horrors of tooth pain and rudimentary dentistry.
But the final segment just doesn't pack the emotional wallop it's supposed to, and the casting of Helen Hunt, perhaps the most over-exposed, over-used, and over-rated of American actresses doesn't help.
Ironically, for a movie whose central theme is time, it is time itself that ultimately seems to defeat this film. That is, two hours is not sufficient (or wasn't with this approach, anyway) to do justice to the beginning, middle, and end of this particular story. As a result, the ending feels a little tacked-on.
All in all, a movie I'm glad I saw, but ultimately a disappointment given its pedigree.