Cast Away

A classic tale of Robinson Crusoe, brought to life in a captivating spectacle, with the main highlight of this Zemeckis film being the performances. The story itself isn't particularly innovative, it's just sometimes well-spiced - like with the toothache, for example. It’s one of those films where I felt it could have ended about twenty or thirty minutes earlier, but no, they had to tack on another three endings. (10/13/2016)

A little bit of an overdone film. Tom Hanks is excellent, and his Robinsonade is pretty well sketched, but the script slid across the surface, and the highlight of his skid is a terrible and over-complicated ending that clearly shows how much Zemeckis didn't know what to do with Chuck Noland's character. His whole story eventually drowns in horrible phrases and stretched melodramatic schemes, which is really unfortunate. Especially since Hanks is persuasive and apt... The little that the script allows him to show from Noland's insides is demonstrated with passion and great suggestion. But he can't pull off an entire film that's so down-to-earth and literal that it got on my nerves towards the end. It’s too bad, because the theme and some partial technical categories (camera, design) are promising... But the result is unnecessarily sweeping, pathetic and overdone. Yet, thanks to Hanks, quite convincing. (02/02/2005)

It's strange. Cast Away seemingly contains everything that predisposes it to triumphant success, namely an attractive subject matter, an excellent cast, a famous director, a decent script, a reasonably large budget, and so on. Nevertheless, in the end, something didn't quite click for me. I feel a certain unfulfillment of expectations and I don't want to give it a fourth star, even though the film is disadvantaged by the fact that I saw it on television. Perhaps on the big screen, I would lean towards giving it a fourth star. I pondered what was excessive or missing for me, which turned out to partly be a certain melodramatic aspect, but I still couldn't define the core of the problem. Cast Away is too literal, unnecessarily sprawling, pathetic, and overblown. Despite all the effort, it doesn't captivate, even though Hanks gives his all. Overall impression: 65%. (03/09/2015)

Unlike the others, I needed this ending exactly. Without those final minutes, Chuck's adventures would have lacked the emotions and empty journeys back and forth (whether literal or metaphorical) that I've already seen enough of. Zemeckis truly knows how to skillfully create these gentle yet believable moods. (05/27/2006)

I sat and didn't move until the last act. As a survivor of the first BioShock I felt right at home during the perfectly filmed plane crash sequence. The subsequent introduction of the island and the pudgy misfit Hanks makes you feel as happy as he does for the unfortunate guy’s every little accomplishment. It's got beautiful cinematography, great locations, and it works quite humorously with the "American way of life" of the time (even then a bit old-school), with the character quite understandably fetishizing the objects and brands (Wilson) that FedEx delivers. Incidentally, the way he comes out of it I wouldn't be surprised if they paid for the whole film. On the other hand, they did come up with some pretty funny advertising through the film. Unfortunately, my empathy strings snapped during the widely criticized conclusion. You couldn't ask for a more hopeless romantic, yet I just don't buy it when a half-crazed castaway having spent four years on a desert island returns home and the one thing that's on his mind is his last girlfriend. I know it's a strong theme, but from the little I've read about people who've been orphaned from civilization for even a fortnight and are still recovering from it mentally, the whole cavalier ending seems totally phoned in. (06/14/2021)