zardoz-13
"Die Hard 2" director Renny Harlin's swashbuckling pirate movie "Cutthroat Island" is reminiscent of Errol Flynn's best adventure yarns aboard wooden sailing ships. The chief difference between the Flynn escapades and "Cutthroat Island" is that the protagonist is none other than a damsel who is rarely in distress. Geena Davis plays Morgan Adams, the rip-snorting, robust daughter of Black Harry (Harris Yulin), one of three brothers who scour the seven seas to steal untold treasure. The villain of this sprawling sea yarn is Black Harry's treacherous brother Douglas Brown (Frank Langella of "Dracula") who has taken Harry as prisoner aboard his ship and demands that his brother give him one of three pieces of a treasure map. Naturally, Black Harry refuses and prefers to plunge himself into Davy Jones' locker at the end of a rope attached to the ship's anchor. Meantime, Morgan escapes from a British naval lieutenant with whom she has spent the night in bed and frantically rides to the rescue of her father. Ironically, Black Harry doesn't want to be rescued, but Morgan doesn't abide by his wishes and dives into the drink after her doomed father and saves him long enough for him to tell her to shave his head. Now, Brown takes after Morgan in hot pursuit. As it turns out, Black Harry has concealed his scrap of the map under his hair on his scalp where it has been tattooed. One must idly wonder about the fate of the man who tattooed that map there. Initially, Morgan and her pirate crew, that once sailed for her father aboard the ship Morning Glory, decide that the map is written in Latin. Happily for them, they learn about a slave about to be sold at auction on a nearby island, and they buy him, or least try before certain bystanders discern that the woman garbed up like a lady is none other than Morgan who has a hundred pounds bounty on her head. Everybody escapes by the collective hair on their chins, and the race is on with Morgan after the second part of the map that belongs to Mordachai Fingers. Director Renny Harlin never lets the action loiter in this sizzler, and Frank Langella makes a terrifically terrifying pirate villain. Look long and hard and you won't spot the inevitable parrot perched on anybody's shoulder. Surprisingly, despite its beautiful scenery lensed off the coast of Thailand and John Debney's exhilarating orchestral score, "Cutthroat Island" was a huge theatrical flop.
KadeemG61
I know what you thinking, we ripped Cutthroat Island before, but what critics didn't know that it's a swashbuckling pirate movie. Yeah, even with the bad dialogue, poor production value, and Geena Davis performance as a female pirate were lackluster at best. Suddenly, Carolco returned to sender and destroyed the film industry as becoming the latest victim of facing bankruptcy soon after the film crashed and burned hard at the box office and holds the (now-defunct) record of Biggest Box Office Flop of All Time with an embarrassing $98.1 Million budget only to reach $60 Million.Make no mistake, the film was bad. But I haven't even watched it on TV or appearing on other premium networks. To me, I felt like it should've add more money to make and director Renny Harlin still has lots of gas in the tank left for his ailing career.But Cutthroat Island is one of those films that is criminally underrated. And much like the success of the long-running Pirates of the Caribbean series, Cutthroat Island never had a chance of becoming a potential franchise too. But if you haven't seen this classic, it's worth a rental or buy on Blu-Ray.
wheaton-732-150373
I mean, yes of course it was a flop at the box office because it cost a lot of money to make and was released around the world and only made a fraction of that money back. So by the technical definition of flop this movie was a flop.But most flops are really bad movies. Like really bad. Like REALLY bad. And this movie isn't bad at all! Not even half bad. I think this movie is even slightly better than the average movie especially when you consider putting it up against just other movies of the same era. It's a decent movie.I don't know if it was maybe bad marketing, or bad word of mouth, or just a sexist attitude that didn't want to see a movie with a female ship commander, but this movie deserved better!
Spikeopath
Cutthroat Island is directed by Renny Harlin and written by Robert King and Marc Norman. It stars Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, Frank Langella, Maury Chaykin, Patrick Malahide, Stan Shaw and Rex Linn. Music is scored by John Debney and cinematography by Peter Levy.A film of many flaws, with a reputation akin to it being the devil of big budget failures, it is, however, a wonderful piece of piratical entertainment if you are prepared to see past the monetary excess. Famously cited as the film that bankrupted Caroloco Pictures, the truth is that Carolco was going under anyway, the studio had filed for bankruptcy before Cutthroat Island had even been released, the box office performance was irrelevant, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. And while no amount of hard sell marketing could have gotten the film to make back the $98 million spent making it, it received no support from distributor MGM who were in the process of being sold, so finances for marketing were not available.Harlin's movie has all the pirate movie ingredients crammed in to the plot, though it is a standard plot that sees Davis as female pirate Morgan Adams who leads her charges on a quest to find the ultimate treasure hoard. Problem is that the map is in three parts, each part held by separate people, one of which is Morgan's vicious Uncle Dawg (Langella). The hunt and race is on, and Harlin doesn't pause for breath, he's a kid in a sweet shop armed with wads of cash, but the money, as gargantuan as it is, is there on the screen; well except for the hiring of better actors that is. Two magnificent ships were built for the production and they are magnificent, the costumes, the sets, pyrotechnics, exotic locations (Malta and Thailand standing in for 1668 Jamaica), stunning sound editing and visual thrills, all high on value and all cloaked by a tremendously robust score from Debney.Action junkies are well served here, with wild horse drawn carriage chases, sword fights aplenty, ships in side by side explosive battle, mucho perilous situations, bodies falling from heights or thrown in the sea, and we even get a comic relief simian! Who, as it turns out, is one of the best actors on show. It's hard to believe that a pirate action film such as this would not be better appreciated had it been released in the last ten years, and I say that not just because of the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but more so that the blunderbuss popcorn movie has greater support these days. There's a good portion of the movie loving faithful who just want to be entertained, where rapid thrills are a requisite, not well drawn characterisations and thespian class. Judged on those terms then Cutthroat Island is a winner for sure.Main problems are the clunky script and the three pronged miscast errors in the lead roles. Davis (erm, wife of Harlin) is full of guts, really attacking the material with gusto, but she never convinces, it always feels like a caricature and she's uncomfortable delivering key lines. She would prove herself a fine action actress a year later with The Long Kiss Goodnight (also with Harlin directing), but she's woefully out of place here. With Davis demanding more and more screen time for her character, the role of Shaw began to thin out, which was too much to bear for Michael Douglas who bowed out late in the day. In came Matthew Modine, zero chemistry with Davis, a bland acting style and as far removed from the period setting as you could get. Langella just isn't menacing as the main villain of the piece, a very good actor in the right role, but not here and some of his attempts at nastiness feel like panto season has started early.Problems for sure, but wade through some of the misconceptions and poisonous press and you will find a film desperately aiming to please you, with much on offer for the pirate movie fan to savour. 7/10
