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100A really classic adventure yarn with one of Hollywood's great actors hitting one out of the ballpark. If you're seeing only one movie this season, this is the obvious choice.
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100It's a startling physical transformation, as Noland goes from flabby desk jockey to lean, mean fishing machine. But even more remarkable is the mental transformation Hanks effects.
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91Hanks towers as a near naked, near biblical man. Zemeckis tells his story -- the screenplay is by William Broyles -- with a control magnificent in what isn't shown as much as in what is.
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90Finally, the man (Hanks) has delivered a moving, slightly unhappy, and ultimately hopeful story in which squishy love takes a backseat to the wondrous whirlwind of life. The season's most delightful surprise.
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90Zemeckis is more interested here in getting us thinking (and feeling) than in telling us what to think.
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89A handsomely constructed and executed movie, the kind of effort that deserves appreciation, on its own terms, for what it both dares and accomplishes.
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88An adventure movie of extraordinary simplicity and power.
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88Bold, ambitious -- and ambiguous.
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88Just be glad that Hanks and Zemeckis toiled mightily to pull off at least two-thirds of a remarkable achievement.
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80A 25-minute third act is far too short to suffice, especially when the previous two hours are as astute and technically impressive as they are here.
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80It's mournful and troubling in a way that goes beyond ordinary movie manipulation. It burns clean.
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80Hanks gives possibly the most compelling performance of his career.
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80At its best, Cast Away, like "Titanic," awes us with its sheer oceanic sweep and its cosmic apprehension of human insignificance.
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80If there's anyone who can make this ordeal -- and when you're plumb out of characters, it can be an ordeal -- tolerable, and even entertaining, it's Hanks.
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75Here is a strong and simple story surrounded by needless complications, and flawed by a last act that first disappoints us and then ends on a note of forced whimsy.
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75Hanks's extraordinary acting keeps the adventure involving even though the beginning is predictable, the middle is uneven, and the finale slips into Zemeckis's patented brand of "Forrest Gump" fuzziness.
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75It's a simple message, and it's delivered with a grace and subtlety that's rare in would-be blockbusters.
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75The island phase of Hanks' performance is simply amazing.
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75The film's most remarkable achievement, in this culture of clamor, simply may be its decision to keep the volume down, drawing us in as opposed to pummeling us, as most films do.
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75The middle 90 minutes, which put Hanks alone on an island without voice-over narration or even a musical background, is as risky as anything Hollywood did this year.
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75With its weary introductory and concluding passages, it announces itself as the most typical of fare, a real letdown after that stirringly fresh central part.
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70This is no film for the squeamish.
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70At its most basic level, Cast Away is a graceful and powerfully rendered survivalist saga.... And yet there's something generic about Chuck's plight. The filmmakers don't opt for the usual happy-face Hollywood ending, but even the half-smile they provide smacks of inspirationalism.
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70Solid and inspiring will do nicely for Christmas, but it ought not to be good enough for the Oscar nominations that will almost certainly rain upon this movie's adequate head.
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70While "Robinson Crusoe" was a paean to the practical middle-class virtues that allowed its industrious hero (and the nation he represents) to re-create civilization out of nothingness, Cast Away is a far less triumphalist peek into the nothingness at the heart of civilization.
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70The 80 minutes it spends on the atoll alone with Hanks make for engrossing storytelling. The film is less sure-footed back in civilization.
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70Meticulous, sumptuous production design, and striking visuals compensate for the lack of dramatic momentum in a film that arguably stretches narrative form to its limits.
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60Comes off as convincing but never compelling. There's a ponderous quality to it, as if it's forever clearing its throat to say something of value that doesn't quite get articulated.
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60It’s sad to see such stunning work self-destruct. You walk out haunted by the movie that might have been.
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60Hanks and Zemeckis (and writer William Broyles Jr.) are so intent on making an epic of the spirit that they can't bring themselves to acknowledge the comic, narcissistic side of their desert island fantasy. And so on simple, human terms, the picture gets all gummed up.
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50Too full of its own heavy breathing to work as the primordial storytelling it's aiming for--a so-so adventure story is closer to the mark.
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25It will bring joy in a way certainly not intended, as one of the most gloriously and unwittingly silly films ever devised by a major American filmmaker.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 23
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Mixed: 3 out of 23
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Negative: 3 out of 23
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