Cast Away - Special Edition
Fox Home Entertainment   -   2000   -   143 minutes

Reviewed by Thor van Lingen

Review Date: June 29, 2002

FOR STARTERS

PHOTO GALLERY The FedEx Way

A Hollywood recipe for a successful movie calls for one part award-winning director, two parts big-name actor, and if you�re feeling lucky three parts acclaimed screenwriter. Well, with Cast Away you get all that and more with the team of Robert Zemekis, Tom Hanks, and William Broyles Jr. For anyone who needs an education in tinsel town name recognition, Zemekis has been the man behind the camera for such wonders as the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and more recently for films like Forrest Gump, Contact, and What Lies Beneath. Also no stranger to the spotlight is this guy you may have heard of before: Tom Hanks. With five best actor nominations since 1989, including back-to-back winners for Philadelphia and the aforementioned Forrest Gump, you pretty much couldn�t pick a better guy to stick in front of the camera by himself for almost a whole movie. Sprinkle in a dash of writing by a man responsible for such recent spectacles as Apollo 13, and you can understand why this movie did $233 million domestically.

Having burned up enough italics in the first paragraph to choke a small rodent, lets get on to the movie. Hanks stars as a systems engineer for Federal Express whose very existence it seems is to live by the clock. Being late is not an option. Losing time is not an option. Failure is not an option. There are even quips in the movie that Hanks� character Chuck Noland once stole a bicycle from a child to deliver packages, though Noland insists that he only borrowed it. The early turning point in the movie comes when Noland is whisked away on Christmas to put out another metaphorical corporate fire. His girlfriend Kelly Frears (played by Helen Hunt) is very understanding of his high-demand status with Fed Ex, and looks forward to seeing him for New Years Eve when he gets back.

Mother nature, however, has other plans for Noland and his package-delivering cronies. They end up about 200 miles off course and headed for trouble in a serious tropical storm. When the plane finally does end up crashing in the ocean, Noland is the only one to escape the wreckage with his life. Ending up on an uninhabited island by himself, we are left in the capable acting hands of Tom Hanks to pull off a serious monologue for practically the duration of the movie. Only kept company by his volleyball compatriot Wilson and the Fed Ex packages that washed up on shore, Noland is stranded for over four years, until one day half of a port-a-potty washes up on shore and gives him a sail. Being a certified sailor (a fact you can pick up on if you pay special attention to the contents of his living room early in the film), he is able to fashion a raft and wait for the right time to shove off with the assistance of his trusty cave-lit calendar.

Back on shore and with ice in his glass, Noland is forced to deal with the fact that his girlfriend at the time of his disappearance has moved on, and is now married with child. He is also shocked to find out that the Houston Oilers are now the Tennessee Titans, and that they actually almost won the Super Bowl. Super Bowl theatrics aside, the rest of the movie is Noland trying to figure out his place in the universe, and coming to terms with being brought �back to life�. The shot towards the end of the film standing by his Jeep at the crossroads is really an interesting metaphor for the situation he is in. He has many choices that run off infinitely in many directions with no limits.

VIDEO

Good but not great video is the verdict for this disc. There were minor instances of pixilation in certain scenes, though nothing too offensive. The color palette, as with most DVDs, was very good, with the best color of them all, green, being very prominent throughout. Some of the moonlit scenes with the clouds and the blue hue had a very nice look to them. The very orange sunset at the top of the cliff in the rope hunt sequence was also nice to look at. Low light performance all around was good, with moonlight and firelight sequences having a very nice feel. There was a scene towards the end with Hanks driving in the Jeep that broke up very badly, but I don�t know if that was localized to my machine or disc only, so I won�t harp on it.

AUDIO

For a movie that is virtually silent for a large portion of the time, the audio on this disc is very good. Right/left separation, off screen perspective, and really good aural balance throughout make this a very nice DVD sonically. All of the Foley work is very well preserved and delivered, and the surround trickery you�ve come to enjoy with 5.1 sound is certainly evident. It seemed to me that the right front channel was very busy, but that may just have been a product of the movie itself. If you are a big fan of off-screen audio, the coconut tree shower should not disappoint. The center channel also had a nice range of sound to deliver, and did so admirably. The rear channels (my personal favorite) provided good undertones and effects, and were a contributing factor to a very nice surround experience, even when they were only delivering subtle off camera effects.

SUPPLEMENTS

Though not a cavernous wasteland of an evening, you can get lost on disc two of this set for a while. With a fairly engaging �making of� segment, and some decent special effects vignettes, you won�t feel like you squandered anything to spring for the special edition. There is also a TV spot that gives you some respectable insight into the construction of this film. Despite the fact that this disc will not provide you with an adequate baby sitter to go out for a whole movie, it could probably buy you enough time to cook a decent meal or perhaps order pizza. They use some fairly original transitions and Cast Away themed menu magic to keep you interested. Certainly not a loser, maybe just not the best DVD you could pop in if you�re looking for extras.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You really can�t go wrong with the cast of characters 20th Century Fox paid to assemble, here. With all this big name talent, you are more than likely going to hit pay dirt. Reunited after scoring big with Forrest Gump, Zemekis and Hanks won�t let you down with Cast Away.