It's hard to get really involved in Cast Away because you know that Tom Hanks just won't die.

Even if you haven't seen the previews, or read much about the film, it's obvious that Tom Hanks isn't just going to rot on that island - the colours are too bright, Hanks is too glossy, the music too light hearted. Cast Away is far too mainstream to kill off the mega star who is also a co-producer.

Hanks does die sometimes of course in films- but not often at the box office. He's more likely to succumb while holding off a nasty German tank or from a fashionable disease like AIDS, rather than just depress everyone by dying of hunger by himself on some lousy little island.

No this proud Yank will definitely fly the flag proudly. Cast Away tells a tale about an executive from a mail company called Chuck (Hanks) who gets marooned on a small isolated island after the plane he's in crashes into the sea.

There's a long preamble establishing that Chuck is a loving family man, that he's dedicated to his job and that he fights like hell to get the mail delivered on time. Then after he's rescued there's nearly as long a coda where he attempts to fit back into normal life after his long sojourn on that deserted island.

(If you've seen the previews you will apparently already know that much. I don't want to spoil the film for you.)

There's also a huge advertisement for the mail company embedded in Cast Away, one that would have probably just about paid Tom Hank's fee.

Most of Cast Away is pretty good. But by far the most satisfying film making, other than an absolutely magnificent harrowing plane crash, is seeing Chuck learn how to survive on the island.

Figuring out how to make fire was engrossing and his adoption of a totem to talk to, a series of painted heads he called Wilson, was a nice touch - which also gave Hanks some dialogue to work with.

And then his scheme for escape will capture your attention, but I wish that the film had ended there (and left out nearly all of the preamble). And that would have focused the film on its greatest strength - investigating just how a person might survive alone for so long - and how someone could manage those first few days, when death is only one missed drink of fluid away.

But the film didn't dive deeply enough into the grime, pain, hunger and thirst. I was wishing that it was in black and white, with the colour washed from its Tropical Paradise setting, or at least that King Kong might suddenly thunder down from those high peaks and add some real drama.

But Hanks did well enough, at one stage really earning his "nice boy" image - even though he's middle aged,- but is that what we wanted? The situation was tense for Chuck but I repeat, we knew he was going to make it, and somehow he never got dirty or bloody enough - tooth ache or not.

And what of the ending? Hey I bet the accountants argued against that one - and they were right. We didn't quite have the Hollywood ending we expected and the millions who go to the pictures mainly for comfort, not for a challenge, don't appreciate being asked to consider alternate resolutions.

2 Wet And Salty Flys