I love this movie so much

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"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.

In this film two pirates will compete against each other to find a great treasure, waiting hidden in a infamous island. Directed by Renny Harlin, it has a script by Robert King and Marc Norman. It features a cast led by Geena Davis, Matthew Modine and Frank Langella.Before "Pirates of the Caribbean" were rare pirate films that had some success. This was just another movie that tried unsuccessfully to popularize these genre, leading to bankruptcy the company that filmed it. Lots of action (sometimes too much, making the film a comedy of improbabilities), a few jokes with greater or lesser sense of humor, a good mix between a villain bad as snakes and a very attractive heroine and... bingo! We have a pirate movie that manages to entertain without delight or become memorable.Geena Davis was quite regular in her role, but not enough to make the movie of her life. Matthew Modine seems to have been chosen for the role to be cute, he's not a remarkable actor. Langella turns out to be the heaviest actor in the cast, though he has only "grown" after doing it. And he did a good performance, making his character worthy of our anger. Shot in the Mediterranean and the Indian seas, this film has a series of visually appealing scenarios and memorable scenes because of its visual beauty. Boats built for the movie are replicas romanticized of eighteenth century ships, and are beautiful to behold. The special, visual and sound effects worked without stand out. The soundtrack is excellent and, speaking only about pirate movies, its second only to "Pirates of the Caribean".In short, although this movie is far from being a masterpiece, its very good in entertaining the public for a few hours.

CUTTHROAT ISLAND was a film I never got around to seeing as a kid. I suppose the idea of an American pirate film didn't really appeal and indeed this is very much like a 1990s-era precursor to PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, with the same look, the same kind of comedy, the same kind of action-packed feel. Not really my cup of tea as cinema goes; I much prefer the grittier, better-acted style of the BLACK SAILS TV series (Michael Bay's finest hour).In any case, I thought I'd catch up with CUTTHROAT ISLAND and see what I missed. The answer? Not very much. Renny Harlin has always been a hit or miss director and this is a big miss even this early on in his career (surprisingly so, given how entertaining DIE HARD 2 and CLIFFHANGER are). Geena Davis is woefully miscast in the role of a female pirate battling against an even greater foe; she looks ridiculous when attempting to do the action scenes and even outside of the action her open-mouthed style makes her look wooden and out of her depth.The only genuine performer of note is the seasoned Frank Langella as the charismatic villain, although he's too suave and good-looking to be all that hateful. He certainly shows up Matthew Modine's laughable would-be roguish good guy. Patrick Malahide is saddled with predictability, Maury Chaykin is annoying, and the reliable Stan Shaw wasted in a nothing-except-stand-around-and-look-tough part. The action is endless, endlessly cheesy, and completely fake-looking, with the stupid climax being particularly bad. Overall the film feels fake and wishy washy, and it comes as little surprise to me that this film flopped. It makes Costner's WATERWORLD look like a Oscar winner by comparison.

No doubt that before Johny Deep and Jack Sparrow, flooded theaters, "Cutthroad island" La Isla Cutthroat, in Spain, was the most serious attempt to resurrect the old genre of film and sword. As we all know the stakes of Carolco, was a total failure that led to the same production of emblematic films in the history of cinema as Terminator 2, Total Recall and Basic Instinct, economic collapse causing their demise. Views today, hard to believe that a film with so much budget, familiar faces and a classic story and easy to assimilate not only cause concern in most of the public. Especially if we note that the film is a simply brutal media deployment. The beautiful scenery, atmosphere of the sixteenth century, explosions, chases, battles at sea, well ..... certainly can not say that it lacks spectacular. Then, because that way the film crashed at the box office? what went wrong?.One factor, I think, is the simplicity argument. We tell the story of treasure and such, but there is no narrative depth, nor the characters, the story seems more an excuse to show the large budget that had, with dozens of chase scenes and sword fights that have a story. The funny thing is that movies now do exactly the same, but much worse than this but to have success, so perhaps this factor is not as important. I think another factor to consider is Geena Davis. Her work in the film is good and meritorious, but the problem is that the majority of the public simply does not believe in heroin, as simple as that. There was an actress that people imagine in such roles, despite their efforts to show otherwise, as would later in Lethal Memory. And finally, perhaps the most important of all, was overconfidence. Simply did not think the failure, which prevents a filmmaker always think, even though I know not to do it. Both the producer and the director Renny Harlin, began to commit excesses, they spend money on superficial things and whims of the director with his partner, as the story of the white donkey imported from Malta, where the tape was filmed in the United States, or the improvised script, which they say was written at the same rate at which it rolled. In short, squandered and squandered what they wanted, completely blind until the subsequent disaster due to open their eyes. However, despite all this, the failure of the film is justified. I think not. Come have said the film is a very entertaining adventure story which is enjoyed without problems and that does not give rise to boredom. It is possible that if instead of Mathew Modine, had put an actor with more hook at the box office, Michael Douglas, for example, could have changed anything, but it's only a guess. Keep in spoilers. spoiler Perhaps this film was destined to fail because it was released at a time when the genre of Pirates was practically dead, and the film was condemned by almost everyone for not having enough acting hook, a campaign of poor publicity and too superficial history and simple, although it is a completely repeat spectacular and entertaining film before the era of digital cinema. Moments to remember: The Morgan horse race to save his father at the beginning of the movie, just beautiful. The appearances of Frank Langella as Dog, a great villain that saves much of the film. The flight of Morgan and Shaw in Port Royal carriage, a whole sample as they were before the action scenes without the aid of computer or anything. Magistral. The naval battle, exactly what I said before, great work of Renny Harlin. Others say more, but I think I already spread too, I hope you enjoyed reading this review. Thank you.