But "Cast Away" is so much more than an acting tour de force. Hanks (who lost 50 pounds for the role) and his "Forrest Gump" director, Robert Zemeckis, use their Oscar-winning clout to bend the rules of Hollywood filmmaking, paying huge artistic and emotional dividends.

The film's first section brilliantly and concisely sketches Hanks' character, Chuck Noland, a time-obsessed troubleshooter for Federal Express who's first seen supervising a frantic package-shortage operation in Red Square.

Chuck loves his girlfriend Kelly (a very fine Helen Hunt) back home in Memphis, even if he treats her as another item to squeeze into his frantic schedule.

En route to Tahiti on yet another emergency mission during the holiday season, Chuck's plane goes down in a storm. This is the scariest plane-crash sequence you've ever seen in a movie, and it alone is probably worth your $9.50.

Chuck is the sole survivor who washes up on an unpopulated tropical island. He must fend for himself, using the native plant life and items from a handful of packages that have washed ashore.

He learns, for instance, that a seemingly useless pair of ice skates can open coconuts and be used to perform impromptu dental work.

A volleyball he nicknames "Wilson" (after its corporate logo) becomes, after he paints a face on it with his own blood, the virtual Man Friday to whom he addresses sarcastic quips.

He even finds a way to use videotape in the packages in one of his two exciting, and very scary, attempts to brave huge waves to leave the island. 

Chuck sets aside one package, with a pair of wings painted on, that will come to symbolize his determination to eventually return to civilization - and at least symbolically fulfill his obligations as a Fed Ex manager.

Most movies would cut away from Hanks's solo scenes for glimpses of the rescue search and his anxious loved ones back home. "Cast Away," daringly does not and the movie is better for it because tension is maintained.

Even more unusually, "Cast Away" mostly does away with a musical score. Zemeckis trusts his ability to move the audience through Hanks' funny and touching performance and the elegant, inventive camerawork supervised by Don Burgess, without the kind of manipulative music that so many filmmakers rely on as a crutch.

That's partly a tribute to William Broyles' uncommonly intelligent script, which makes the specifics of Chuck's stay on the island so specific and credible that you may forget you're watching a movie - especially when, after four years on the island, the once-pudgy Chuck is an emaciated wraith with a scraggly beard.

Broyles and Zemeckis have also devised an ending that is much more clever and touching than the one you may think you're getting from the much-criticized coming attractions trailer.

"Cast Away" flirts with many of the same philosophical issues that were in the foreground of "Forrest Gump," but basically this is a really classic adventure yarn with one of Hollywood's great actors hitting one out of the ballpark.

If you're seeing only one movie this season, this is the obvious choice.