I know it's not fair to judge a feature film based on its trailer, but in this case it's almost impossible not to at least mention it. The fact that every important plot point is shown to you 2 weeks before you even see the movie is simply unforgivable. Since the preview essentially disemboweled Cast Away, I felt cheated...as if I'd have enjoyed the film a lot more had I known nothing about it. You know, like it should be.
That's twice now in one year for director Robert Zemeckis. His summer blockbuster What Lies Beneath also had a trailer that was plastered in every movie theater across the country. If you enjoy going to the movies at least twice a month, you probably saw it. As is also the case in Cast Away, Zemeckis not only allowed these spoiler previews, but also encouraged them!
A quote from Zemeckis that was published at David Poland's web column sheds some disturbing light onto Zemeckis' tendency to ruin his own movies: "We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It's just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don't. What I relate it to is McDonald's. The reason McDonald's is a tremendous success is that you don't have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu."
Read that quote twice, please. The "study of marketing"? A film director comparing his films to McDonald's cheeseburgers??!!?? I've compared more than a few movies to McDonald's food, and it's never a compliment. Heck, I know Zemeckis has made some fantastic films (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Romancing the Stone and the Back to the Future trilogy) but it's really sad to see a filmmaker become this shallow. Sure, spoil the ending for everyone, as long as it gets more asses in the seats, right Bob?
OK, enough on the trailer. The movie as a whole? Pretty to look at, but dramatically listless. Tom Hanks is on hand to play his amiable everyman role, only this time he's doing a Robinson Crusoe number. (The producers of Cast Away would seemingly have you think the whole marooned alone on an island conceit is entirely original.) The fact that Tom Hanks offers yet another inspiring performance is almost disappointing, in that he's considerably better than this movie deserves.
Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a harried FedEx supervisor who plans his life down to the very second. Before hopping aboard yet another plane in the middle of a downpour, he tells his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt, yet again) "I'll be right back". Now, if you've ever seen maybe a dozen movies, then you know that "I'll be right back" almost always ends up meaning "I may never see you again at all." OK, so we lose a few points for sheer predictability but we still have the ever-watchable Hanks survive a horrendous plane crash.
After washing ashore, Chuck quickly realizes that he is completely alone on this tiny island and he goes about organizing his survival. Fortunately, several FedEx packages begin to wash ashore, offering Chuck several new tools and offering the audience a half-dozen clumsy product placements. (In the most obvious advertisement, Chuck paints a face on a volleyball and names him 'Wilson'...since Wilson is the name of the manufacturer. Wonder if that was in the script?) Granted, the presence of Federal Express lends a large amount of credibility to the film, but after an hour I felt like I was watching the world's most dramatic (and longest) FedEx commercial.
Once on the island, Cast Away is worth seeing for the visual splendor alone. Many of these sequences are among the most beautiful of the year, but again - You don't judge a gift by the wrapping paper. The script (by William Broyles Jr.) offers several moments when we're obviously supposed to feel something, but many of the emotional cues ring false. Chalk it up to clumsy pacing. For example, the film's best scenes are of Chuck's first few days on the island. It's quite fascinating to see a man governed by time forced to simply slow down to a crawl. Just when things are getting interesting...we flash to 4 years later.
The ending, while not a complete disappointment, simply reeks of "Hey, we have NO idea whatsoever how to wrap this movie up, so we hope this works a little". I'm not exactly sure what the overall lesson of Cast Away is, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with that old "appreciate what you have or you'll miss it when it's gone" chestnut. I'd be a lot more interested in this message if it hadn't been beaten into my skull already by movies like The Double Life of Vernoique, Sliding Doors, Me Myself I, and The Family Man. But when describing Cast Away to potential producers, I'm pretty sure Zemeckis stressed the 'Tom Hanks on a desert island' angle a bit more than the 'startlingly original screenplay' pitch.
Sometimes you'll see a movie that seemingly everyone adores and you wonder if maybe you're missing the boat. Perhaps the expectations were too high, but aside from another fantastic performance from Hanks and some truly breathtaking scenery, Cast Away is best described as cinematic filet mignon. It sure looks beautiful on the plate, but once you're done eating it, you're still hungry. (Scratch that, since Zemeckis would rather I compare his films to a Big Mac than to an actual steak, apparently.)
It's been reported to death that Tom Hanks gained (and then lost) a lot of weight to film this movie, and his dedication to his art is certainly worthy of praise. Maybe after all the trouble Hanks went through, Broyles could have followed suit and offered to beef up his script a little as well.
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