Cast Away

Review by Jason Gaston

Talk about the come-from-nowhere shocking disappointment of the year! If any movie should have been cast away this year, it should have been Cast Away.

Now, first of all... Cast Away is a boring, depressing, slob of a movie and it didn't have to be! The movie lasted thirty minutes longer than it should have and it didn't have to! This movie would have been so, so, so much better if the first part of the movie and the ending was cut out and left on the editing room floor, but as it stands... I did not like Cast Away at all! This is just another movie gunning for Oscar at the last minute... spare me the Survivor movie, please!

Okay... random observations.

1. Exactly how much money did FedEx contribute to this film?

2. Cool crash sequence.

3. Stranded On An Island Mistake (SOAIM) #1: Dead people do not need clothing. You do. Strip 'em then bury 'em.

4. SOAIM #2: Do not waste batteries looking at a picture in the dark. The picture will still be there when you wake up in the morning.

5. SOAIM #3: Never walk barefoot across a coral reef... STUPID!!!

6. And the point of him leaving the flashlight on and draining the batteries was....?

7. Who wants to take a bet that the volleyball gets a nomination for best supporting actor? God knows, it deserves it more than Tommy Lee Jones did.

8. Tom Hanks confides that, after a year on the island, he thought about hanging himself. Well, I sat through this movie for only an hour and I was already considering that!

9. I do have to say that I am impressed with Tom Hanks loosing all that weight from the beginning of the movie to the end.

10. Once Tom Hanks leaves the island... it all goes to crap. The movie gets really depressing and boring.

11. Okay, at LEAST tell us what was in the package he kept and delivered at the end of the movie! You know what would have been really funny? If it was one of those satellite phones that can place a call from anywhere on the planet. Irony, huh?

Needless to say, I didn't like this movie. Too depressing, too long, too self-important, and painfully flawed at the beginning and end which sucks because the middle is actually quite good.