Much Ado About Nothing...

Rating: 6/10 (11 February 2001)

Before seeing the result of a new cooperation between Hanks and Zemeckis I read lots of reviews and praises about this film. My opinion is: It is the ordinary Hollywood mainstream movie targeted at the average America's audience (by the way, in Europe this movie did not score at all).
The first "let's meet our hero" part is just terrible. The worst part is about the FedEx guy's visit to Moscow. Hey, Mr. Zemeckis..it is year 2001 now, and you show Russia as it is 20 or 30 years ago. The most ridiculous thing is a lorry stuck in the middle of the Red Square (as far as know, there's no traffic there!) and Tom Hanks "the savior of under-developed Russians" paying his employees with bars of Mars and cans of Coke. Hey...this is nominee number 1 for the worst movie of the year!
Then we see Helen Hunt with another non-convincing performance this year (I think her popularity this year is a big mistake of the studios' casting). She tries (without success) to show at least some emotions towards her husband played by Hanks. But it seems like Ms. Hunt read her script just before shooting somewhere in between her other numerous movies, because her acting is not convincing at all.
Then we are supposed to be stunned by crash-scene, after which the "one-actor" show begins. I do not think that Tom Hanks is a bad actor, but his level is not high enough to carry the weight if mega-million dollars' movie alone. For sure, this part of the film contains lots of stereotypes about "a-la Robinson" situations. For almost one hour we see how Mr.Hanks learns to make a fire, to open the coconut shells, etc, etc. In fact, Discovery Channel would do this part of the movie in a better way.
Then our hero fights with the ocean, loosing his companion, Willson-ball, which was supposed to be a very touching scene. Then our hero is happily home, being saved in the middle of the ocean. His wife is already married, and here it's better to stop the movie, but the director uses the audience's patience for another half-hour, posing some moral questions (finally!) if it is good to ruin new family of his ex-wife.
Overall, the movie is boring with exception of some moments (10% of the movie or so). After leaving the theater I just felt like I left an American-style fast-food, feeling lots of food in my stomach but being unable to recall the taste of food. Same here: expensive movie longer than 2 hours with nothing to recall in couple weeks. Indeed, this year was not good for Hollywood.