Seul au monde

It's strange. Cast Away seemingly contains everything that predisposes it to triumphant success, namely an attractive subject matter, an excellent cast, a famous director, a decent script, a reasonably large budget, and so on. Nevertheless, in the end, something didn't quite click for me. I feel a certain unfulfillment of expectations and I don't want to give it a fourth star, even though the film is disadvantaged by the fact that I saw it on television. Perhaps on the big screen, I would lean towards giving it a fourth star. I pondered what was excessive or missing for me, which turned out to partly be a certain melodramatic aspect, but I still couldn't define the core of the problem. Cast Away is too literal, unnecessarily sprawling, pathetic, and overblown. Despite all the effort, it doesn't captivate, even though Hanks gives his all. Overall impression: 65%. (09/03/2015)

Unlike the others, I needed this ending exactly. Without those final minutes, Chuck's adventures would have lacked the emotions and empty journeys back and forth (whether literal or metaphorical) that I've already seen enough of. Zemeckis truly knows how to skillfully create these gentle yet believable moods. (27/05/2006)

A little bit of an overdone film. Tom Hanks is excellent, and his Robinsonade is pretty well sketched, but the script slid across the surface, and the highlight of his skid is a terrible and over-complicated ending that clearly shows how much Zemeckis didn't know what to do with Chuck Noland's character. His whole story eventually drowns in horrible phrases and stretched melodramatic schemes, which is really unfortunate. Especially since Hanks is persuasive and apt... The little that the script allows him to show from Noland's insides is demonstrated with passion and great suggestion. But he can't pull off an entire film that's so down-to-earth and literal that it got on my nerves towards the end. It’s too bad, because the theme and some partial technical categories (camera, design) are promising... But the result is unnecessarily sweeping, pathetic and overdone. Yet, thanks to Hanks, quite convincing. (02/02/2005)

I totally agree with Tosim that we should realise what is and what is not important. Of course, the problem is that Zemeckis could have used the contrast “necessary for life vs. consumer life" to a much greater extent, but he did it in only a few scenes (Hanks at the table with crabs and a lighter). Instead, in the final quarter, he showered us with an emotional avalanche that may have made some cry, but annoyed the hell out of me. It's a pity, such an attractive premise could have been used much better, and the splendidly skinny Hanks with his gorgeous beard would have deserved it. (08/05/2003)

I don't need to go on and on about what an amazing actor Tom Hanks is, because we all know that already. What I should mention in my review, though, is that Hanks' performance is what makes Cast Away such a compelling, moving and thought-provoking adventure that I enjoy on each subsequent viewing as intensely as on the first... (12/10/2012)