- Introduction -

I had heard of Castaway when it first came out and being that I had already seen and quite enjoyed other movies the main actor, Tom Hanks, has done (such as Big (a great movie!), Forrest Gump and The Terminal), I thought it would be worth seeing. I hadn't got around to seeing it before, so when I spotted that it was going to be shown late at night on TV (not that its an adult movie, it isn't really, its rated 12), even better on the BBC (no annoying ad breaks!), I knew I had to record it to watch later. I decided to watch it last night and found it to be pretty good, all in all.

- Main Credits (non-actors, which are mentioned further on in the review) -
Source:- IMDB (see:- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/fullcredits)

Director - Robert Zemeckis
Writer - William Broyles Jr.
Producers - Tom Hanks, Jack Rapke, Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis
Associate Producers - Steven J. Boyd, Cherylanne Martin
Executive Producer - Joan Bradshaw
Cinematography (director of photography) - Don Burgess

- Story (incl. main acting cast) -

Cast Away stars Tom Hanks as Fed Ex employee Chuck Noland, who lives a very hectic and stressful life, travelling around the globe, delivering packages.

That is until one day, when his flight encounters problems, entering a storm that quickly turns nasty and results in the plane crashing into the ocean below.

Chuck manages to survive, remarkably with only very minor injuries all things considered and climbs aboard an empty rescue dinghy which floats through the wreckage (handy, eh?) as he struggles to stay afloat. With the storm still going strong, he stays in the dinghy and the next thing we know, he's waking up the next day to find himself having been washed up onto the beach of a deserted island, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Will he manage to find enough on the island to survive on? can he find help? what will become of him? you'll have to watch the movie to find out, of course.

- Genre/Themes etc. -

This is a slow drama, I would call it. It isn't too fast paced but it still kept me interested enough to keep watching and there is the odd dramatic scene to add to the story.

I'm not sure about themes really but the message behind it is clearly one about thinking what really matters and about thinking about your busy workload and lifestyle. Things could be worse, you could be stuck starving on a desert island!

- Thoughts/Opinions/Extra Information -

It was kind of interesting to see the ways that Chuck adapted to his new environment.

For instance, learning the best way to open fallen coconuts so that he gets all the moisture and liquid available from them.

It is quite clever, how he manages to make the most of the little he has, like some Fed Ex packages that drift onto shore, he finds a use for most of the items they hold.

The sheer frustration has has is clear, as is understandable, I mean just imagine the thoughts he must have, not knowing if he'd ever be found. Can you imagine what you'd do, if you were in that situation?

Its hard not to wince at times too, he gets his share of pain through certain situations, which of course adds to his frustration.

As the movie goes on and of course time passes by, he becomes more vocal and makes a face out of one of the items he found in one of the Fed Ex packages - a volleyball, which he names Wilson and starts talking to more and more, as if it were human. The lack of human contact clearly affects him, as it would affect anyone, I imagine.

Alot of the emotions are only evident from his facial expressions and later on from his frustrated and sometimes hopeful outcries and dialogue/banter with Wilson (the volleyball).

Its not hard to feel sorry for the guy in this situation (although at the start of the movie, he is portrayed more as a bit of a jerk, bossing people about and complaining when he doesn't get to where he's supposed to be quite in time) and it is intriguing, like I say, to see how he copes and adapts to whats available to him.

Seeing how he changes as time passes by is also quite sad or depressing in one sense but in another it indicates some real strength and will I guess. I wonder how long it would be possible to last in such a situation? he clearly misses his wife, having a framed photo of her that takes pride of place among his belongings. As time passes by, he realises what a large area there is for any search party to cover and his hope of being found diminishes but of course, you have to see the movie to find out if he is rescued eventually or not.

The sort of friendship that evolves between Chuck and Wilson is kind of intriguing. I guess some would say that it marks the start of his mental well being deteriorating, he certainly converses with 'Wilson' as if it were a fellow human, initially painting a face on it as I mentioned previously, to even more humanise it.

Tom Hanks does pretty well in portraying the character of Chuck, certainly, as I say, you can see the emotions, the frustation and fear, on his face.

I guess the message behind it is to do with taking a step back from our busy workload and lifestyle and to think about the basics, hey at least we have food, drink, shelter and human company, well, most of us do anyway, right?

While this might sound like a fairly boring movie, there is the ocassional dramatic scene, not including the plane crash, though its also fair to say that they are a bit few and far between.

There is the odd squeamish moment, I would warn, if you don't like blood, just be aware, its only the occasional but it made me look away, I'm not good with that sort of thing I'll admit!

The way the story plays out and the character of Chuck is shown, I felt it intrigued, certainly me anyway, to watch on and find out what became of him.

The film does a good job of making you see quite how isolated he is too, with the vastness of the ocean surrounding him.

I thought, given the ending as well, that this is a movie that feels like it is trying to give a message to its viewers, about making us think about our hectic lifes and whats really important. This may put some off I suppose, I wouldn't say thats overly preachy really, its more at the very end that this is really brought home, you could say.

I thought that this was a good movie worth watching on TV or renting but probably not particularly worth paying much to get on DVD. There are more exciting, funnier and more original movies out there of course but for what it is, its been made pretty well (if that makes sense(?)), so I'll be nice and give it a 4 star rating. The main downside I felt was at the ending, which I felt was a bit over the top and too 'Hollywood-ised', which I did feel in a sense let it down somewhat, so I'd say that really overall, this is a good movie but by no means the best around. Good but not great.

- Certificate -

Cast Away is rated 12 in the UK. This is due to some dramatic scenes, which may scare or disturb young children and due to some disturbing images, which are mainly of wounds inflicted on Chuck. As I mentioned under thoughts and opinions above, if you don't like the sight of blood you'll have to look away a few times but its not something thats present so much it should overly put you off watching the movie, its only present in a few scenes every now and then and it adds to the realism of the movie. I don't remember there being much strong language or any real violence as such, there's also no sex scenes or any drug references either, so its pretty sfae for teens to watch. They may find it a bit slow though, it isn't a particularly fast paced movie.

- Official Website -

Cast Away doesn't have an official site now, so again I'll re-direct you to IMDBs entry for the movie, where you can find the usual sorts of things (trailers and videos, trivia, memorable quotes and other user reviews etc.). Here's the link:- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/

- Conclusions -

This is a good movie to watch, especially for Tom Hanks fans, I thought he did quite well in this, as you'd expect of such an actor. Also having the name Robert Zemeckis as director should also make you expect that this is a decent, quality movie, which it is, pretty much, though like I say, it isn't without any negatives and is hardly the best movie around (which would be difficult, considering how many movies exist of course!).

The story is interesting enough but without the character of Chuck being so well played out, it would be very average or/and even very boring. As it is, its worth seeing, its good for what it is, so to speak.

Worth renting if your interested, or taping/watching if its shown on TV again, this is a pretty well made movie of whats now becoming perhaps a somewhat over-used story (given the TV show Lost of course and other similar shows and movies, though it is probably worth saying that this movie dates from 2000, so before the TV show Lost started).

I hope you found my review useful in deciding whether to watch this movie, I hope it doesn't seem too rushed, I've thought of something else (an album) I want to do a thorough review of and am trying to get through this one to start to work on that, so expect another review from me possibly this evening or tonight at the earliest or otherwise possibly tomorrow or later this week (depends how long it takes for me to put all my thoughts down and decide what I want to say and so on, so I can't be sure how long it'll take. I'm becoming a bit obsessed with reviews I know, I just really enjoy the comments and messages I get so again thank you everyone for those!).

As always, thanks for reading!