Review of Cutthroat Island (1995) by Matthew B — 06 Mar 2013

Cutthroat Island was a fun pirate adventure that is under-appreciated and should be more popular amongst the current generation for being a large scale pirate adventure from before Pirates of the Caribbean, not because it was the biggest box office bomb of all time.

Cutthroat Island doesn't hit an epic scale in certain areas and it becomes easier to follow than Pirates of the Caribbean because it focuses on fewer characters. It's main focus is on Geena Davis and Matthew Modine on their journey to Cutthroat island and leaves the epic scale to the pirate themes instead of a massive main cast.

Geena Davis gave an ok performance and is still fairly gorgeous, but her character Morgan Adams "The most swashbuckling female pirate ever to lay waste to the seven seas" has no intimidation and seems more like a lady in a strong position slipping by everyone. She had no strong female persona to her which was a shame because Morgan Adams was a character who demanded it. She was a little too sweet.

Matthew Modine was a good lead and had characteristics of a serious Captain Jack Sparrow, replacing the tomfoolery for a more crook characterisation, and making William Shaw a strong character with an uncertain look in his eyes. How Modine's career isn't consistently mainstream anymore is a mystery to me.

Cutthroat Island also benefits from it's strong cinematography and excellent musical score that can only be defined as Oscar-worthy. It assists to maintain a constant classical pirate feel throughout all of Cutthroat island.

Cutthroat Island is especially good because you can see that Carolco pictures really put faith in it, and with the sizeable budget and Renny Harlin as a director they worked to ensure that Cutthroat Island was a fun adventure. Few people appreciated that.

The only main flaws I found with Cutthroat Island was that at several times, especially in the more climactic moments, there was a tedious use of slow motion which brought no benefit to the film. Also, the screenplay wasn't that clever, and the pacing was irregular.

But Cutthroat Island was fun and underrated, and wasn't deserving of being a box office bomb in anyway. More people should know of and appreciate his film, and maybe one day people will as a film misunderstood in it's time.