CUTTHROAT ISLAND
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1996 Craig Good
So Jeff and I got to the crummy local 15-plex just a few minutes too late to see "Sense and Sensibility" on Saturday. The logical alternative was to see "Cutthroat Island" instead. Right? It turned out not to be such a bad choice.
I'm not going to try to tell you that this is great cinema. It's not going to make many top ten lists, and even this year I don't see it grabbing a nomination for Best Picture of the Year. But was it fun? Yup.
>From the first stunt set piece, where Geena Davis the pirate (if you can't suspend that particular disbelief long enough for her to convince you, don't bother going any further) plunges toward the ocean floor to cut her father loose from the anchor which is pulling them both below the waves, I began to make mental comparisons to "Goldeneye". I thought that if that incomprehensibly dull Bond film had had one or two gags that good, it would not have been such a disappointment. But the scale and outrageousness of the gags in "Cutthroat Island" do nothing but build from there, all the way to the explosive finale.
This is a pirate film which aims to please and, for the most part, delivers. Nobody said "Arrrgh, Matey" nor "keelhaul", but peg legs, plank-walking, cannon fire and sabre duels are delivered by the galleon. It may be obvious to point out that this is not a finely-crafted character piece. Director Renny Harlin instead paints with broad, bold strokes which are more often than not perfectly appropriate. I mean, why have a boring establishing shot when you have a good helicopter camera rig close at hand?
The dialogue doesn't so much sparkle as fizzle most of the time, with occasional and worthwhile exceptions where it blazes. But the action, gorgeous locations, and and production design deliver in such outrageous proportions that it is possible to forgive many weaknesses. Were I a pyro/FX man on this picture, I would have left the set every night saying, "Man, I love my job". It's not just scale which makes it work, although heaven knows this is huge, but the playful imagination which went into nearly every setup. Call me perverse, but I found poetry in the way giant cannons were catapulted through the air during the point-blank sea battle. And Geena Davis' stunts (aided, no doubt, by digital wire removal) were often *literally* over the top.
If you found this year's Bond flaccid and still hunger for a fun romp, perhaps the turgor of Geena Davis will sate that appetite. It's no "Citizen Kane", but in the end, "Cutthroat Island" delivered everything I wanted but never got from "Goldeneye".
--Craig
good@pixar.com
Toy Story: $125.5 Million and counting...
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