I really don't understand it when people talk about how Tom Hanks didn't speak during the middle portion of this movie. The volleyball was thrown in there to avoid just that. Tom Hanks has a lot of dialoge while on the island. That said, this could have been a great movie, but it fell short. First of all, we all found out that he would get off the island from the preview. That upset me. But after seeing the movie, I understood why this was done...after he gets off the island, the movie is terrible. Zemekis has therefore successfully made two bad movies out of one project. (He made the sub-par What Lies Beneath while Hanks was losing weight) It makes me worry that other good directors might end up doing the same. Next thing you know, Oliver Stone might make a lousy movie...wait a minute, I forgot about U-Turn. Darn!