When we meet Chuck Noland (Hanks), he's a FedEx efficiency expert who is teaching Russian employees how to worship the clock god with the same religious fervor that he does. Back home in Tennessee, Chuck has an almost fiancée, Kelly (Helen Hunt). Hunt, who seems to be in every recent film, is an actress of whom you can never get enough. With little screen time, she develops Kelly into an extremely sympathetic character. The role could easily have been a throwaway since this is essentially a one man picture. Well, there is also a volleyball, but more on that later.

Before Chuck leaves for Russia, we watch in flashback as he and Kelly exchange Christmas gifts. He gives her a pager, and she gives him her grandfather's Southern Pacific pocket watch with her picture inside of it. He promises to always keep it on "Memphis time, Kelly time." These presents are exchanged in the exactly two minutes that he asks the FedEx flight to wait for him. Promising, "I'll be right back," he leaves on his "brief" trip.

I've been in an airplane that went into freefall, and there is no more frightening experience. Our plane pulled out in time, but Chuck's didn't. The airline disaster is the first of many times that you'll be gripping yourself, your armrest, your companion or all three. Don't be surprised if you scream. This, however, is far from the last such experience that you will have while watching CAST AWAY. Self-administered dentistry and simple injuries will be others. Even Zemeckis's recent WHAT LIES BENEATH isn't nearly as frightening as CAST AWAY because the former film was just a movie whereas CAST AWAY plays more like real life.

After the plane crashes somewhere in an area of the Pacific ocean twice the size of Texas, Chuck ends up on a large, rocky island with no inhabitants. Some FedEx packages wash up on shore with everything from ice skates to videotape. Eventually he manages to put everything to good use, but daily survival becomes a tricky proposition. Foraging for food and trying to create a fire prove much harder than you might suspect.

Chuck's Man Friday comes from a birthday present being mailed to a young boy. Inside the box is a Wilson Sporting Good's volleyball, which Chuck calls Wilson after painting a face on it. In order to keep his sanity, he bonds with the ball and loves it more than any pet. This allows writer William Broyles Jr. (ENTRAPMENT) to have Chuck speak without having to resort to voice-over. Hanks's body gestures and his limited conversation with Wilson tell the bulk of the story. If you've foolishly harbored any doubts whatsoever about Hanks's acting ability, this movie will remove them. It is a one man show in which we never tire of him.

After weeks on the island, the story jumps ahead four years in which an emaciated -- the filming was put on hold for 16 months so that Hanks could shed over fifty pounds -- and sullen Chuck labors away on his island prison.

While we are on the island, Zemeckis lets no background music spoil the feeling of being alone in nature. A serious movie, it does provide some comedic flourishes to make it less difficult to watch.

This story of a control freak who loses all hope of control after being lost in the wilderness is a hard one to end properly. But to the writer's credit, he manages to make the end almost as gripping and successful as the rest of the picture. Only in the unnecessary proclivity to too neatly tie up loose ends in the last scene or two does the movie ever fail us.

If they ever release a five hour director's cut of the movie, I'm there. It's that kind of story. It could not be more absorbing. We were only able to witness a small part of Chuck's 4 years stuck in his hellish paradise of an island. We'd love to know more. Still, we will always treasure what we learned when we were vicariously incarcerated there with him.

CAST AWAY runs 2:23 but feels shorter. It is rated PG-13 for intense action sequences and some disturbing images. It would be acceptable for teenagers, but the movie is likely to frighten most viewers regardless of age.