One of Best this Year

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2000)

Everyone I saw this with, our group and the rest of the theater, was enthralled. This isn't a movie that spoon-feeds all its meaning to you, you have to pay attention and think.
Hanks's does an amazing portrayal: from shock, to determination to escape, to frustration, desolation, fear, through despair, a kind of reversion to primitive nature, and bare grip on the edge of sanity (from isolation). The movie really explores issues of humanity, community and human need, without preaching it. It's why I liked Saving Private Ryan better than The Thin Red Line. 'Ryan' had every bit as much to say about war and its effects, but let you figure it out. I would have to disagree with some comments, such as that Hanks should have had time to enjoy the natural wonders--not when mere survival is your full-time, every waking minute job, and nature can easily be the enemy. Also, Hanks does explore as much as is physically possible, you see everything he can see from that summit, and there is only one beach. I think the intensity comes from the whole movie (except first few minutes) being entirely from his vantage point; I would not have wanted to see what was going on 'back home'. I also can't imagine why there ever would have been any other human on this volcanic outcropping hundreds of miles from nowhere, so I'm not sure what good a skeleton in the cave would have done.
SPOILER REBUTTAL AND COMMENT It was not the view of any in our group that he replaced Hunt with the redhead. He was at the last looking down a different road, the one toward California. The ending didn't *feel* satisfying, but I can't say it was *unsatisfactory*. Hunt was ambivalent about commitment at the beginning, and still ambivalent at the end. She was consistent in that way. Hanks was, in a way, still adrift; only knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow.