Cutthroat Island

A very entertaining movie filled with action, adventure, and piracy on the high seas, "Cutthroat Island" is a pure adventure movie. The plot is pretty mediocre, allowing as much action and suspense to be put in the story. It's your typical pirate story though, pirates must find, understand, and figure out the map leading to a mysterious island with hidden treasure of unthinkable riches. But throwing in a tough, hard-bitten, and beautiful piratess was a pretty nice touch, including a thief to provide some comic relief.

Geena Davis surprises me again with her talent in being able to play many different roles from a ghost in "Beetlejuice", a baseball player in "A League of Their Own", a mother full of heart in the Stuart Little movies, and now a piratess in "Cutthroat Island". She gets to give plenty of punches plus handle the cutlass with ease as she fights pirates, the military, and her uncle. She's definitely very cool! As for Matthew Modine, I had never seen him in any movies before but I found him astoundingly funny though he gets plenty of action. He in a way reminds me of Cary Elwes as Wesley in "The Princess Bride" with his sarcastic humor and boundless enthusiasm. Oh, it was also a special treat to see the young and sweet Christopher Masterson as Bowen. Though his role was small, he was excellent as a cabin boy with his obvious admiration and loyalty to his captain. He's probably more known as Chris Masterson, starring in "Dragonheart: A New Beginning" and also starring in the series, "Malcom in the Middle".

So if you're in the mood for a movie with giving off lots of action, energy, suspense, and swashbuckling, make time to watch "Cutthroat Island". Rated PG-13 for the action and fighting and also for some innuendo.

On the plus side: great scenery, lavish period costumes. A 'fifties-era pseudo-Copeland, pseudo-Stravinsky sound track. Best performance by far is that of Frank Langella. What a great bad guy! He did a superb job. And if you like things that blow up and go 'boom' there's enough to wet the most adolescent appetite.

What else makes this one such a dud? The insipid, post-modern dialog and sarcastic one-liners, especially out the mouth of the
insufferable Matthew Modine. Geena Davis' not inconsiderable acting ability is obliterated by the god-awful script.

SPOILER ALERT: In the end, when the 'good' pirates get the treasure and Morgan (Geena Davis) tells them they're all rich men and can retire in luxury, they all choose to follow her in pursuing a life of piracy, bad food and all. Yeah, right! (I'd have been up for a bit of wenching and carousing, myself). But since everything that preceded it is so totally preposterous, I suppose one more stupidity doesn't matter. And to top it off, no good sex scenes!

Avast, mates; go to the library and check out those old Erroll Flynn flicks.