A perfect marriage of novel but incisive writing, acting, and direction, Big is the story of a 12-year-old boy who wishes he were older, and wakes up one... read more

A perfect marriage of novel but incisive writing, acting, and direction, Big is the story of a 12-year-old boy who wishes he were older, and wakes up one morning as a 30-year-old man (Tom Hanks). The script by Gary Ross (Dave) and Anne Spielberg finds some unexpected ways of attacking obvious issues of sex, work, and childhood friendships, and in all of these things the accent is on classy humor and great sensitivity. Hanks is remarkable in the lead, at times hilarious (reacting to caviar just as a 12-year-old would) and at others deeply tender. Penny Marshall became a first-rate filmmaker with this 1988 work. --Tom Keogh (hide)

The Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Best Director Robert Zemeckis, and Best Actor Tom Hanks, this unlikely story of a slow-witted but good-hearted man somehow at the... read more

The Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Best Director Robert Zemeckis, and Best Actor Tom Hanks, this unlikely story of a slow-witted but good-hearted man somehow at the center of the pivotal events of the 20th century is a funny and heartwarming epic. Hanks plays the title character, a shy Southern boy in love with his childhood best friend (Robin Wright) who finds that his ability to run fast takes him places. As an All-Star football player he meets John F. Kennedy; as a soldier in Vietnam he's a war hero; and as a world champion Ping-Pong player he's hailed by Richard Nixon. Becoming a successful shrimp-boat captain, he still yearns for the love of his life, who takes a quite different and much sadder path in life. The visual effects incorporating Hanks into existing newsreel footage is both funny and impressive, but the heart of the film lies in its sweet love story and in the triumphant performance of Hanks as an unassuming soul who savors the most from his life and times. --Robert Lane (hide)

Cast Away is a good movie that wants to be much better. While director Robert Zemeckis's earlier film Contact achieved a kind of mainstream spiritual significance, Cast Away... read more

Cast Away is a good movie that wants to be much better. While director Robert Zemeckis's earlier film Contact achieved a kind of mainstream spiritual significance, Cast Away falls just short of that goal. That may explain why the film's most emotionally powerful scene involves the loss of an inanimate object, even as it presents a heart-rending dilemma in its very human final act.

It's three movies in one, beginning when punctuality-obsessed Federal Express systems engineer Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) departs on Christmas Eve to escort an ill-fated flight of FedEx packages. Following a mid-Pacific plane crash, movie number two chronicles Chuck's four-year survival on a remote island, totally alone save for a Wilson volleyball (aptly named "Wilson") that becomes Chuck's closest "friend." Movie number three leads up to Chuck's rescue and an awkward encounter with his ex-girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt, in a thankless role), for whom Chuck has seemingly risen from the grave.

It's fascinating to witness Chuck's emerging survival skills, and Hanks's remarkable physical transformation is matched by his finely tuned performance. With slow, rhythmic camera moves and brilliant use of sound, Zemeckis wisely avoids the postcard prettiness of The Black Stallion and The Blue Lagoon to emphasize the harshness of Chuck's ascetic solitude, and this stylistic restraint allows Cast Away to resonate more than one might expect. Even the final scene--which feels like a crowd-pleasing compromise--offers hope without shoving it down our throats. You may not feel the emotional rush that you're meant to feel, but Cast Away remains a respectable effort. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men... read more

When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.

A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.

The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas (hide)

NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled... read more

NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

"The book was better" has been the complaint of many a reader since the invention of movies. Frank Darabont's second adaptation of a Stephen King prison drama (The... read more

"The book was better" has been the complaint of many a reader since the invention of movies. Frank Darabont's second adaptation of a Stephen King prison drama (The Shawshank Redemption was the first) is a very faithful adaptation of King's serial novel. In the middle of the Depression, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) runs death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Into this dreary world walks a mammoth prisoner, John Coffey (Michael Duncan) who, very slowly, reveals a special gift that will change the men working and dying (in the electric chair, masterfully and grippingly staged) on the mile . As with King's book, Darabont takes plenty of time to show us Edgecomb's world before delving into John Coffey's mystery. With Darabont's superior storytelling abilities, his touch for perfect casting, and a leisurely 188-minute running time, his movie brings to life nearly every character and scene from the novel. Darabont even improves the novel's two endings, creating a more emotionally satisfying experience. The running time may try patience, but those who want a story, as opposed to quick-fix entertainment, will be rewarded by this finely tailored tale. --Doug Thomas (hide)

A romantic comedy, of sorts. The romance is airy and distant, because the lovers never meet until the final scene, and the comedy is kind of wistful, because... read more

A romantic comedy, of sorts. The romance is airy and distant, because the lovers never meet until the final scene, and the comedy is kind of wistful, because it was directed by Nora Ephron. She is still a writer at heart, and it shows-there are scenes here that linger well past their bedtime, all for the sake of a few good lines. Tom Hanks plays Sam, left miserable by the death of his wife, with only his young son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), to console him. The consolation goes a bit far; Jonah rings up a radio talk show to say that his dad needs love (this is almost unwatchable, but grit your teeth and stay with it). Many listeners melt with sympathy, none more so than Annie (Meg Ryan), in Baltimore, shortly to be married and none too happy about it. For the rest of the movie, fate-and Jonah-do their best to bring the couple together, despite the continent that divides them. The result is sweet and moody, and richly photographed by Sven Nykvist, but you can't help feeling shortchanged; Hanks and Ryan have quick wits, and funny faces to match-they should be striking sparks off each other, not mooching around waiting for something to happen. Hanks has a few goofy outbursts, and there is lively backup from Rosie O'Donnell and Rob Reiner as helpful friends, but anyone expecting another "When Harry Met Sally ...'' will be disappointed. At least Harry met Sally. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker (hide)

By now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got... read more

By now, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have amassed such a fund of goodwill with moviegoers that any new onscreen pairing brings nearly reflexive smiles. In You've Got Mail, the quintessential boy and girl next door repeat the tentative romantic crescendo that made Sleepless in Seattle, writer-director Nora Ephron's previous excursion with the duo, a massive hit. The prospective couple do actually meet face to face early on, but Mail otherwise repeats the earlier feature's gentle, extended tease of saving its romantic resolution until the final, gauzy shot.

The underlying narrative is an even more old-fashioned romantic pas de deux that is casually hooked to a newfangled device. The script, cowritten by the director and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, yet they first meet anonymously, online, where they gradually nurture a warm, even intimate correspondence. As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes.

It's no small testament to the two stars that we wind up liking and caring about them despite the inevitable (and highly manipulative) arc of the plot. Although their chemistry transcended the consciously improbable romantic premise of Sleepless, enabling director Ephron to attain a kind of amorous soufflé, this time around there's a slow leak that considerably deflates the affair. Less credulous viewers will challenge Joe's logic in prolonging the concealment of his online identity from Kathleen, and may shake their heads at Ephron's reinvention of Manhattan as a spotless, sun-dappled wonderland where everybody lives in million-dollar apartments and color coordinates their wardrobes for cocktail parties. --Sam Sutherland (hide)

Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to... read more

Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to take AIDS as its primary subject. In that sense, Philadelphia is a historically important film. As such, it's worth remembering that director Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs) wasn't interested in preaching to the converted; he set out to make a film that would connect with a mainstream audience. And he succeeded. Philadelphia was not only a hit, it also won Oscars for Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Streets of Philadelphia," and for Tom Hanks as the gay lawyer Andrew Beckett who is unjustly fired by his firm because he has AIDS. Denzel Washington is another lawyer (functioning as the mainstream-audience surrogate) who reluctantly takes Beckett's case and learns to overcome his misconceptions about the disease, about those who contract it, and about gay people in general. The combined warmth and humanism of Hanks and Demme were absolutely essential to making this picture a success. The cast also features Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas (as Beckett's lover), Joanne Woodward, and Robert Ridgely, and, of course, those Demme regulars Charles Napier, Tracey Walter, and Roger Corman. --Jim Emerson (hide)

Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book... read more

Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold, and The Da Vinci Code has clearly made the leap from pop-culture hit to a certifiable franchise. The leap for any story making the move from book to big screen, however, is always more perilous. In the case of The Da Vinci Code, the plot is concocted of such a preposterous formula of elements that you wouldn't envy screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, the man tasked with making this story filmable. The script follows Dan Brown's book as closely as possible while incorporating a few needed changes, including a better ending. And if you're like most of the world, by now you've read the book and know how it goes: while lecturing in Paris, noted Harvard Professor of Symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summoned to the Louvre by French police to help decipher a bizarre series of clues left at the scene of the murder of the chief curator. Enter Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), gifted cryptologist. Neveu and Langdon team up to solve the mystery, and from there the story is propelled across Europe, ballooning into a modern-day mini-quest for the Holy Grail, where secret societies are discovered, codes are broken, and murderous albino monks are thwarted… oh, and alternative theories about the life of Christ and the beginnings of Christianity are presented too, of course. It's not the typical formula for a stock Hollywood thriller. In fact, taken solely as a mystery, the movie almost works--despite some gaping holes--mostly just because it keeps moving. Brown's greatest trick was to have the entire story take place in one day, so the action is forced to keep moving, despite some necessary pauses for exposition. As a screen couple, Hanks and Tautou are just fine together but not exactly memorable; meanwhile Sir Ian McKellen's scenery-chewing as pivotal character Sir Leigh Teabing is just what the film needed to keep it from taking itself too seriously. The whole thing is like a good roller-coaster ride: try not to think too much about it--just sit back and enjoy the trip. --Daniel Vancini

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On The DVD
The DVD extras on a film as popular as The Da Vinci Code should be plentiful, and this version doesn't skimp. With over 90 minutes of special features, including ten behind-the-scenes featurettes, there's a lot here to explore beyond the film itself. The question is, is there anything new here that we haven't heard before, in all the hype, pseudo-documentaries, and controversy surrounding the movie, to make it worthwhile? For most viewers, the answer will be "yes." Essentially, if you like the movie, if you enjoyed the book, you will get a lot out of them.

Just as the movie is intended to make the book come to life, the DVD extras should make the film come to life by pointing the audience into the world of the filmmakers, connecting the dots between print and film, and for the most part they do just that. The extras here range from the typical look behind-the-scenes to more in-depth features on the supporting characters, the locations, and the Mona Lisa herself. "First Day on the Set with Ron Howard" features the director gushing about the opportunity to film in the Louvre and work with Tom Hanks again (the two worked together before on Splash and Apollo 13). It's a short piece that doesn't reveal much beyond making an attempt to share Howard's excitement (with the "Gee, I really loved working with him/her on this project" that you hear in every such featurette), but viewers might enjoy seeing how the stage was set up in the famous museum, down to the spike tape on the floor showing actors where to hit their marks. The Filmmaking Experience, Parts 1 and 2 further explores the creative and technical aspects of the filmmaking process. A Conversation with Dan Brown starts out feeling like a puff-piece (the man who wrote this book got started at age 5 with a story called The Giraffe, The Pig, and the Pants on Fire. "It was a thriller," he says.) and unfortunately it doesn't go very deep into much of anything of interest. But on the other hand, this isn't 60 Minutes here; it's intended to give viewers a better sense of the man behind the franchise, which it does. Much of the footage from this interview is sprinkled throughout some of the other featurettes. Meanwhile, the character behind the franchise, Robert Langdon, is examined in his own featurette, as is Sophie Neveu. The cool thing here is getting under the skin of the actors to see how they approached the characters, knowing that most of the movie-going public already has formed their own ideas about the characters from the book.

The most interesting extras are the featurettes that focus on the history behind the mystery. Or is it the mystery behind the history? Either way, the first one on the Mona Lisa, and the second featurette on the many codes and symbols that are hidden throughout the movie balance out the remainder of the extras nicely by demonstrating the sense of intrigue, mystery, and game-playing adventure that made The Da Vinci Code so popular in the first place. --Daniel Vancini

Beyond The Da Vinci Code

The Films of Tom Hanks

The Films of Ron Howard

The Da Vinci DVDs: Decoding "The Da Vinci Code"

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Stills from The Da Vinci Code (click for larger image)

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Like an airport running at peak efficiency, The Terminal glides on the consummate skills of its director and star. Having refined their collaborative chemistry on Saving Private Ryan... read more

Like an airport running at peak efficiency, The Terminal glides on the consummate skills of its director and star. Having refined their collaborative chemistry on Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me if You Can, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks mesh like the precision gears of a Rolex, turning a delicate, not-very-plausible scenario into a lovely modern-age fable (partly based on fact) that's both technically impressive and subtly moving. It's Spielberg in Capra mode, spinning the featherweight tale of Victor Navorski (Hanks, giving a finely tuned performance), an Eastern European who arrives at New York's Kennedy Airport just as his (fictional) homeland has fallen to a coup, forcing him, with no valid citizenship, to take indefinite residence in the airport's expansive International Arrivals Terminal (an astonishing full-scale set that inspires Spielberg's most elegant visual strategies). Spielberg said he made this film in part to alleviate the anguish of wartime America, and his master's touch works wonders on the occasionally mushy material; even Stanley Tucci's officious terminal director and Catherine Zeta-Jones's mixed-up flight attendant come off (respectively) as forgivable and effortlessly charming. With this much talent involved, The Terminal transcends its minor shortcomings to achieve a rare degree of cinematic grace. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

An enormously entertaining (if somewhat shallow) affair from blockbuster director Steven Spielberg. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a dazzling young con man who spent four years... read more

An enormously entertaining (if somewhat shallow) affair from blockbuster director Steven Spielberg. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a dazzling young con man who spent four years impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer--all before he turned 21. All the while he's pursued by a dedicated FBI agent named Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), whose dogged determination stays one step behind Abagnale's spontaneous wits. Both DiCaprio and Hanks turn in enjoyable performances and the movie has a bouncy rhythm that keeps it zipping along. However, it never gets under the surface of Frank's drive to lose himself in other identities, other than a simplistic desire to please his father (Christopher Walken, excellent as always), nor does it explore the complex mechanics of fraud with any depth. By the movie's end, it feels like one of Frank's pilot uniforms--appearance without substance. --Bret Fetzer (hide)

Much better than your average cop-and-dog movie (e.g., K-9), Turner and Hooch is really a love story about a control freak (Tom Hanks) who gradually resigns to the... read more

Much better than your average cop-and-dog movie (e.g., K-9), Turner and Hooch is really a love story about a control freak (Tom Hanks) who gradually resigns to the messy chaos of a sweet hulk of a pooch named Hooch. The excuse for this relationship is that the dog can identify a murderer and Hanks needs him, but the film is really about such hilarious moments as Hanks bathing Hooch with a long brush, and a wild chase through the streets when the sharp-eyed mutt spots his suspect. Layered over this is a healthy love story between Hanks and animal vet Mare Winningham, who share a terribly sexy scene together--while fully clothed--doing no more than making breakfast. (Hanks directed this scene, though Roger Spottiswoode directed the rest of the movie.) --Tom Keogh (hide)

Tom Hanks was a relatively unknown TV actor with a sitcom as his biggest credit when relatively unknown director Ron Howard (best known for his own sitcom acting)... read more

Tom Hanks was a relatively unknown TV actor with a sitcom as his biggest credit when relatively unknown director Ron Howard (best known for his own sitcom acting) cast him in this surprise hit. It made stars of Hanks, Daryl Hannah, and John Candy and an A-list director out of Howard. Hannah is a mermaid who comes to Manhattan in search of Hanks, the guy she has twice saved from drowning. Hanks runs a business with his lovable blowhard brother (Candy), whose goal in life is to have a letter published in Penthouse. When this perfect woman shows up, Hanks can't believe his luck and plunges into a dizzyingly romantic relationship, unaware of her sea-water secret. But the mermaid needs to soak and unfurl her tail from time to time, which leads to complications, including her capture by the government for scientific study (what else?). Hanks is winningly charming and Hannah is a perfect match in this enjoyably high-spirited comedy, though the biggest laughs belong to Candy. --Marshall Fine (hide)