A Brief Review – Cutthroat Island (1995)

I watched this for the first time in January and while it had a good story I found it to be poorly executed. Things felt “jumbled”  and Gina as good as an actress she is didn’t suit the role in my opinion, she just seemed like a modern woman that was shoehorned into that time period.

Having said that it’s obvious Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (my favorite Pirate-themed movie) “borrowed heavily” from this film, including:

• The Jail Scene
• The side-by-side ship battle.
• Ship destruction by “Powder Magazine”.
• The Port Royale/Jamaica similarity.
• And finally the music – especially the fiddling.

It had it’s moments but in the end it became tedious and was a struggle to get through.

Rating: 5/10

Can’t say I ever liked it. It’s one of those typical 90s star vehicles built around its main actor playing themselves in a wild setting. Much like Will Smith’s Enemy of the State or Wild Wild West. It’s lighthearted fantasy, but trivial and goes on too long for its own good. Like many comedies / adventure films of that era, the finaly is overblown, and the narrative is suffocated in endless scenes of people yelling and bombastic music. Much like the obligatory noisy CGI battles at the end of each Marvel movie. Many of these films would have been wise to take note of how Spielberg crafted his finales. He often placed the giant action setpieces in the middle (Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones trilogy) and would often place the main characters is smaller, more confined, but perilous situations towards the end of a film (Jurassic park with the raptors, Indiana Jones 3 with the finale just taking place in a room with cups, Jaws with the finale on an immobilized boat).

btw came across an interesting naval themed movie a while back: Master and Commander. Different style of film, but if you like pirate themed films, you may enjoy it. Has an incredible soundtrack and a fantastic performance by Russel Crowe

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Wisdom.