Cast Away Details

Proving, to an extent, that the old ideas are often the best ones, Tom Hanks plays a Robinson Crusoe for the 21st century in this near one-man-show adventure from his Forrest Gump director, Robert Zemeckis. The aeroplane crash that strands Federal Express agent Hanks on an uninhabited South Sea island is authentic enough to ensure that Cast Away will never be shown as an in-flight movie. Alone on screen for most of the film's duration, Hanks's plight makes for riveting viewing as he struggles to keep body and soul together. It's only when he arrives home to a wholly unsatisfying, woolly conclusion that the film unravels, despite the lengthy break in filming (during which Zemeckis shot What Lies Beneath) that enabled Hanks to shed weight for the homecoming. An exhilarating testimony to the resilience of the human spirit that doesn't quite know what to do with itself back on the mainland.

A movie that is less interested in exploring the consequences of the isolation of a hyperactive manager than in demonstrating the ability of its star to hold an audience on his own, with no more than a charismatic volleyball for company; Hanks manages it