Cutthroat Island (1995) - What Did I Just Watch?
Originally published August 2018I greatly enjoy watching movies that have something of a reputation, especially when it comes to seeing it for the first time. Whether or not I actually enjoy the movie, it feels like an experience that is more unique to me because I get to see something without any hype around it, but with an understanding of what the rest of the world thinks of it—similar to how I approach video games these days. I enjoy watching both the beloved and the infamous films of this nature. Sometimes, it's like Annie Hall where I have to ask, "That's It?!" because I couldn't stand watching what some people believed to be worthy of the title "Best Picture." And sometimes, it's like watching Cutthroat Island, where all the infamy of this movie makes sense and is somewhat deserved, but also not what I expected.
If you don't know of Cutthroat Island, here is a quick refresher. Before Pirates of the Caribbean revitalized the pirate genre in movies, Cutthroat Island did a very good job of killing it off. It is notoriously one of the biggest box-office bombs in history, spending millions of dollars and reclaiming only about 10 % of the costs since its release (approximately a loss of $105 million). It's also the movie that stopped Geena Davis' career in its tracks. She had been in big hits during the 80's and very early 90's, like the remake of The Fly, Beetlejuice, and Thelma & Louise, to name a few. After Cutthroat Island, however, she was barely visible for a long time.
Image: MGM
I knew all this before I decided to take the plunge and see it for myself. What I discovered was that not only does it deserve a great deal of the ire it's gotten for being a cheesy, swashbuckling joke of a movie, but there are some genuine moments of stupid fun and hilarity that made me really glad I watched it. Unlike watching cheap trainwrecks like The Room or Birdemic, Cutthroat Island had a lot of money for its production and huge teams of people who worked on it. So the movie itself is not great and it is a cheesy mess, objectively speaking, but it's also filled with explosions, crazy stunts, over-the-top acting, and elaborate sets that make it all still pretty fun to watch. I wanted to write about this movie after watching it, but in choosing a feature to stick it in, I knew it wasn't good enough to be a question of "Fair or Foul?" Instead, let's just use the format of What Did I Just Watch, where I just tell you what the plot is and talk about the things that make Cutthroat Island stand out.
What Is It?
Cutthroat Island is a pirate movie about Morgan (Geena Davis), the notorious female pirate of the English colonies who is wanted by the authorities for all the typical pirate reasons and has some of her own personal enemies at sea. One of those enemies is Dawg Brown (Frank Langella), who also happens to be her uncle with some unsettling incestuous tendencies. Captain of his own pirate vessel, Dawwg, and his crew of scurvy dawwwgs are after some treasure on Cutthroat Island that Morgan's dad knows the location of, but won't disclose. In an opening scene that is supposed to be emotional (I guess) as the credits roll, Dawwwwg shoots Morgan's dad in front of her. The two of them escape, but her father is close to death. In his last moments, he tells her to remove his scalp because he has the map to Cutthroat Island's treasure tattooed on his dome. Unfortunately, it's all in Latin, for some reason, and Morgan doesn't know Latin.
Like many adventure movies, Morgan the protagonist needs to find someone who is crafty or knowledgeable enough to guide him or her to their destination, just like in The Mummy or the first Pirates of the Caribbean. This is where she meets and hires William Shaw (Matthew Modine), a thief who happens to know Latin and can guide her to the treasure. Being a thief, however, he has a price on his head and is not entirely trustworthy. They break him out of prison in spectacular fashion and start their adventure together, but are hunted and hounded by Dawwwwwg every step of the way.
Image: MGM
That's pretty much the gist of it. Unlike the more absurd story of The Wraith or the incoherent story of Miami Connection, Cutthroat Island's plot is more straightforward than other movies I've discussed in the What Did I Just Watch feature. However, that doesn't make it any less memorable or entertaining.
What Makes it Stand Out?
Swashbuckling Stunts, Action, & Explosions
You just don't get this type of pirate, outlaw, or renegade action anymore in movies. Pirates of the Caribbean started off okay in its first movie, but then it got really absurd with its sword fights on top of the sailposts of sinking ships in the middle of a massive CGI maelstrom. Ever since the Avengers made big spectacle action movies, it seems even rarer to see something that is just down-to-earth and fun, when it comes to action. Sometimes, you just need some straightforward action that involves pirates commandeering ships, firing cannons, sword-fighting, and treasure-hunting without the help of a computer suddenly throwing in a hurricane or a Kraken.
Image: MGM
There is a fair amount of action in this movie that looks pretty good for its age. Part of that is just the use of older movie special effects rather than relying on the computer to fix everything, which would have looked a great deal worse considering this is a 90's movie. Models, sets, and real danger help keep the action exciting and captivating when things are blowing up left and right. The way it's shot sometimes doesn't do the movie any favors because you can definitely tell when a pirate ship blowing up is a model or not, but it's still blowing up the old-fashioned way.
It's not just exploding model ships, either. Some standard action scenes just look good using the old tricks of Hollywood. For instance, the scene where Morgan is on a fleeing horse carriage and has to jump and run through an overhanging room to roll out the other side and land back in the driver's seat is very impressive. They were two separate takes blended together, but watching it in action, it looks pretty good.
Image: MGM
What makes the action really stand out is some of the stunt work. Aside from Tom Cruise or Jackie Chan, it's not often that actors perform their own stunts in an action movie. It's certainly not a bad thing if they don't because movie-making can be very dangerous and it's better to get someone who knows how to perform the stunts if you can. However, when an actor does the stunts themselves, and when you can tell, it adds a subliminal level of danger that makes the action more exciting. In Cutthroat Island, it's often the real actors doing their own stunts, at the behest of the director. There are certainly still stunt doubles, but a majority of the stunts performed are done by the actors themselves, bringing a little more authenticity and danger to the action that helps pull you in. If not for the lame writing and dumb script, if you watched this movie on mute you would probably be impressed.
Frank Langella
Frank Langella has an uncanny ability to really chew up the scenery of a movie when he's playing a villain. It especially helps if he's having a good time doing it and if the movie is bad. Much like Langella's performance as Skeletor in Masters of the Universe—a movie that's just as bad and, perhaps, not as entertaining—Dawwwwwg is a bombastic and wild villain who only gets more and more over-the-top as the movie goes on.
Image: MGM
He has a much less ornate outfit than most other characters in the movie, but he certainly makes a big show of his jagged sword. It's a sword that may look intimidating but probably couldn't cut through a cucumber. The intimidation mostly just comes from Langella's intensity, which can be both bombastic and subdued. Then there are moments that come out of nowhere where he's just thinking about how helping out the British to steal the treasure will ensure him some land and a posh lifestyle, and he starts trying out an English accent for no reason.
It's no coincidence that Langella places this role along with Skeletor at the top of his list of favorite movie roles. He's having a blast, and you can tell. Thus, you should have a blast watching him.
Image: MGM
Why did it Bomb?
Bad Acting
While Langella's performance is not necessarily award-winning, it's fun for a lot of the right reasons. The performances of other people in Cutthroat Island can also be entertaining but for some of the wrong reasons. Geena Davis, in particular, is not trying very hard here. There are some moments where, if she cared more about the movie she was in, she probably would have put a bit more effort into her delivery and acting. In the scenes after she gets injured during a big pirate confrontation, she does not sell the damage at all until it's convenient for her to faint into someone's arms in front of everyone for dramatic effect.
Image: MGM
According to movie trivia facts on IMDB, multiple people involved in Cutthroat Island, including Davis, were requesting to be released from the film, well aware of its impending failure. I'm not sure how the other people involved felt about the experience, but Davis' feelings are on display, at least. She is clearly phoning it in during numerous scenes, and overdoing it in other ones. Unfortunately for her, the studios in charge either didn't notice or didn't care because she was never fired from Cutthroat Island and replaced by someone who was more into the role. Also unfortunately for her, the movie bombed so badly that it mostly destroyed Davis' career. It might have been her performance alone, or it might have been the possibility that she was trying to get fired, thus helping the movie bomb, which brought her career to a halt. She's had a bit of a resurgence there since then, but Cutthroat Island was the moment where she started to fade into obscurity.
It's certainly not all Geena Davis' fault though. There are plenty of other people in the cast who probably could have put a bit more effort into their roles. Matthew Modine, handsome as he is, does not always have the right facial expression for the scene and lacks much bravado in his delivery. He seems suitable enough for the role in terms of his looks and his physicality, but when he talks, he doesn't quite deliver the lines in a way that makes them stick.
Image: MGM
Other, less important, characters don't even try. Despite this being a movie that takes place in various British colonies during the 16/1700s, there are plenty of people who were just using some American (Californian) accents when they talked, including Davis. You may argue: "It's just a swashbuckling pirate adventure movie; it doesn't need to be historically accurate." I agree that it doesn't need to be historically accurate, but when almost everyone else is using an accent except for the hero, the villain, and a few others, it just stands out as weird. One guy who turns traitor to someone at some point was just too unbelievably succinct and clear in his delivery to be a believable pirate when surrounded by Cockney accents from other people who were actually trying. That reason alone should have tipped them off that he was a traitor. Besides, to drive this point home, go back and watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and count how many modern American accents—or even Californian accents—you hear in those movies. It will probably be less than those counted in Cutthroat Island.
Bad Script
It's not just the actor's fault when it comes to how it all appears on-screen. A fair amount of blame could go to the writing. Ignoring the countless clichés that occur, there is still plenty to pick apart. For one thing, everyone has this quick delivery to their lines, making a lot of characters lose any unique qualities they might have. A lot of the lines could have been spoken by any of the cast members and it would have changed nothing; the quick delivery of the lines is often what makes it all feel the same. This was probably meant to make every character seem especially witty. However, they didn't hire David Mammet, or someone skilled enough to actually write something witty. Aside from Langella doing his best to sell his lines, everyone else seems content to half-ass it.
Image: MGM
To really nitpick the script, you could also point out the various arbitrary story trappings of the plot. For example, the reason Morgan and her crew need the thief is because he can speak Latin. So could a lot of priests and other scholars back then, which were in no short supply in the British colonies. They didn't need to go to extreme lengths to rescue him from prison with a big breakout scene. They could have just kidnapped someone, if they were real pirates, that is. Another example: At some point, there is an alliance formed between a couple of prominent characters who really don't have anything in common, and should be eager to kill each other. But it's done so that, in the big climax, both threads are tied up. There are multiple moments like these in Cutthroat Island that just demonstrate how run-of-the-mill it can be.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Cutthroat Island is not as weird as the other movies I've reviewed under the banner of What Did I Just Watch? However, it's interesting in its own right, simply because of its reputation as one of the biggest box-office bombs in history that was responsible for killing Geena Davis' career. Having finally seen it for myself, I am entertained by it for both the right and wrong reasons. If you look past the bad acting or just enjoy it as I do, you can still get a bit of fun out of the big explosions and set pieces.
Want more weird ones like Cutthroat Island? Check out these What Did I Just Watch? reviews!
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