myklrichter

Eastwoods good performance notwithstanding, this film is a flat failure. Not an original character to be found, nor an interesting one at that. The whodunit aspect of the film is about as predictable as a Chicago Cubs season and it is entirely unbelievable throughout. Heres to better days Clint.

This film was a visual feast, but was tailored to the 20-something male who plays Nintendo and Sega far too much. This film was needlessly over-gorey, had nauseatingly bad dialouge, and a soundtrack that added NOTHING to the film and was, at times, unnessecary and overblown. I felt no connection to any of the characters, was given no real reason to care about the success of the mission, and worst of all, the film portayed the Somalis as blood-thirsty savages, all of whom were barbaricly brandishing weapons and ky-yiing at the top of their lungs. Terrible filmmaking. Thumbs down and 4 out of 10 - which is quite generous. LOTR still the best film of 2002.

First of all, let me register my agreement with nearly all of those who wrote before me in that Tom Hanks should and probably will win an Oscar for his performance here. That aside, I feel very cheated in that the movie completely failed to show the viewer what they want to see: the transformation of Chuck Nolan over 4 years on an island. The issue in this movie is not "will he get off the island?" for the trailers and previews and press releases have all told us that he spends four years there before being rescued. Okay -- now that we know that, the real issue then becomes "how does he transform himself over the course of those four years?" How does he grapple with desparation, depression, loneliness, sickness, weather, hope, fear, spirituality.....the list goes on and on. Certainly the movie need not go into every intrinsic detaila bout his life -- but the audience, I think, wants to SEE how he transforms himself -- not just be told, "Four Years Later". That is lame! All in all, even Hanks' stellar performance cannot save this film. Too many questions, too many plot holes, too many "huhs!?!?!". Thumbs down from me.