Cutthroat Island

TV Guide Magazine by

Renny Harlin's big, chaotic pirate flick is best understood as an attempt to revive the waning career of his wife, Geena Davis, but he's done her no great favor. As Morgan Adams, a sort of distaff Errol Flynn, poor Geena gets lost in a hectic scenario that's littlemore than an excuse for a series of thunderous explosions, clanky sword battles and run-of-the-mill spectacular stunts.

San Francisco Examiner by Barbara Shulgasser

The movie is a turgid, swollen, wheezing old contraption, a crashing bore of special effects in which the most exciting moment gives us two ships sitting in water sending cannon balls at each other for what seems like hours on end.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

It takes a two-hour act of will to keep facing the screen during this moribund movie. Every cliffhanger is enough to make you a cliff jumper. Davis and Modine are almost transcendentally unappealing, as they weather dull sword fights, ship-to-ship exchanges and other action-movie banalities.

Empire by Ian Nathan

It's mindless entertainment, but its critical and commercial failure doomed the pirate genre to a watery grave.

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

Cutthroat Island is a mindless diversion. If, for whatever reason, you decide to go, maintain low expectations. Hoping for more than a bunch of loud bangs and ridiculous dialogue will rob Cutthroat Island of its amusement value.

The New York Times by Janet Maslin

Cutthroat Island proves too stupidly smutty for children, too cartoonish for sane adults and not racy enough for anyone who regards Ms. Davis in a tight-laced bodice as its main attraction. The only serious incentive for seeing this spectacle is a fascination with extravagance, since Cutthroat Island is indeed scenic, hectic and big.

San Francisco Chronicle by Peter Stack

It's a swashbuckling extravaganza, but Davis is not convincing. And before anyone objects, it's not because she's a woman. Get out already! This is the '90s, and women can do anything. But they can't escape from a lousy movie any better than a man can.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Cutthroat Island is everything a movie named Cutthroat Island should be, and no more. It is a pirate picture, pure and simple, and doesn't transcend its genre except perhaps in the luxurious production. Leaner and meaner pirate movies have worked more or less as well, but this one gets the job done.

Variety by Todd McCarthy

What seemed like a dubious proposition on paper plays even more dubiously onscreen, as Cutthroat Island strenuously but vainly attempts to revive the thrills of old-fashioned pirate pictures. Giving most of the swashbuckling opportunities to star Geena Davis, pic does little with its reversal of gender expectations and features a seriously mismatched romantic duo in Davis and Matthew Modine.

Time Out London by Trevor Johnston

Harlin is never a man to shy away from the lure of Very Big Explosions, and, on a technical level, the spectacle's impressive. The only actor to make much of an impact is Malahide's colonial officer, who extracts tart irony from the merest crumbs.