Rating: 
Summary: A swashbuckling pirates tale!
Review: When the piratess Morgan Adams (Geena Davis) loses her father, she becomes captain of his ship and crew. As her first act as captain, she decides to search for the treasure on Cutthroat Island. But the actual map for Cutthroat Island is in three pieces, one of which she got from her father. The other two are with her uncles, the cowardly Mordachai (George Murcell) and the evil Dawg Brown (Frank Langella). So Morgan, with the help of her crew and the somewhat untrustworthy thief, William Shaw (Matthew Modine), she sets off to take all the maps and find the treasure of Cutthroat Island.A very entertaining movie filled with action, adventure, and piracy on the high seas, "Cutthroat Island" is a pure adventure movie. The plot is pretty mediocre, allowing as much action and suspense to be put in the story. It's your typical pirate story though, pirates must find, understand, and figure out the map leading to a mysterious island with hidden treasure of unthinkable riches. But throwing in a tough, hard-bitten, and beautiful piratess was a pretty nice touch, including a thief to provide some comic relief. Geena Davis surprises me again with her talent in being able to play many different roles from a ghost in "Beetlejuice", a baseball player in "A League of Their Own", a mother full of heart in the Stuart Little movies, and now a piratess in "Cutthroat Island". She gets to give plenty of punches plus handle the cutlass with ease as she fights pirates, the military, and her uncle. She's definitely very cool! As for Matthew Modine, I had never seen him in any movies before but I found him astoundingly funny though he gets plenty of action. He in a way reminds me of Cary Elwes as Wesley in "The Princess Bride" with his sarcastic humor and boundless enthusiasm. Oh, it was also a special treat to see the young and sweet Christopher Masterson as Bowen. Though his role was small, he was excellent as a cabin boy with his obvious admiration and loyalty to his captain. He's probably more known as Chris Masterson, starring in "Dragonheart: A New Beginning" and also starring in the series, "Malcom in the Middle". So if you're in the mood for a movie with giving off lots of action, energy, suspense, and swashbuckling, make time to watch "Cutthroat Island". Rated PG-13 for the action and fighting and also for some innuendo.
Rating:
Summary: Swashbuckling fun at its best!
Review: Pure joy for fans of old fashioned sea adventure and entertaining, if stereotypical, peg-legged, eye-patched pirates shouting "Arr!", this movie does not pretend to be anything else than it is - great fun based on popular legends and beliefs rather than the facts on pirate lives. And so much the better! Non-stop action, fantastic score, breathtaking sceneries and props, adequately fun script, and, yes, even good acting (to my surprise, Geena Davis actually managed to deliver a good performance!). Frank Langella is almost as good a pirate as Walter Matthau was in Roman Polanski's equally underrated pirate classic. Hearing various bad comments about the movie, I had low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that the bad reviews and comments were simply unfair. Apparently, critics these days follow one another in "their" opinions rather than actually watching the movies, and people are looking for violence and blood of "Dobermann" kind rather than simply entertaining if unrealistic movies like "Cutthroat Island" (actually, the movie seems to have been researched quite nicely - it's the first time I've seen Hollywood use actual "squad" wine bottles in a pirate movie instead of modern-shaped ones!)
Rating: 
Summary: Stop the trash talk!
Review: 4 and 1/4 Stars
I recommended this movie instead of Pirates of the Caribbean .... Given that, I have to defend it against the bitter nay-sayers. Don't get me wrong, Pirates had many positive aspects - Depp's performance chief among them; and yet, it was just too kid friendly (well duh, that's Disney). I whole heatedly believe that Cutthroat was as good, if not far better than Pirates. I would yield to the arguments that the acting here is a bit cheeky, and the editors could have been a touch more through. Beyond that, I don't know what the fuss is about. Maybe the other reviewers just couldn't stomach a (historically improbable) female pirate. Well, I think this movie was a lot of fun, but apparently there are some who didn't care for it. The best advice I can offer here is for all of you out there to watch it, and make up your own minds.
Rating:
Summary: Swashbuckling fun at its best!
Review: Pure joy for fans of old fashioned sea adventure and entertaining, if stereotypical, peg-legged, eye-patched pirates shouting "Arr!", this movie does not pretend to be anything else than it is - great fun based on popular legends and beliefs rather than the facts on pirate lives. And so much the better! Non-stop action, fantastic score, breathtaking sceneries and props, adequately fun script, and, yes, even good acting (to my surprise, Geena Davis actually managed to deliver a good performance!). Frank Langella is almost as good a pirate as Walter Matthau was in Roman Polanski's equally underrated pirate classic. Hearing various bad comments about the movie, I had low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that the bad reviews and comments were simply unfair. Apparently, critics these days follow one another in "their" opinions rather than actually watching the movies, and people are looking for violence and blood of "Dobermann" kind rather than simply entertaining if unrealistic movies like "Cutthroat Island" (actually, the movie seems to have been researched quite nicely - it's the first time I've seen Hollywood use actual "squad" wine bottles in a pirate movie instead of modern-shaped ones!)
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Story; DVD Just Doesn't Make the Cut
Review: I caught this movie in the theater. I loved it. As soon as the DVD was released I purchased it with great enthusiasm. When I got home and played the DVD I discovered, to my great disappointment, that it is in the wrong format and displays with very poor quality. The video looks horrible. I returned the DVD for a refund. Technical Details for the curious:
While this DVD offers both full-screen and wide-screen versions of the movie, the wide-screen version is not anamorphic. That means when you play it on your new TV it just looks bad. If you have an older TV and don't care about video quality you probably won't notice or care about this. I just don't understand. If you're going to stick with VCR-quality transfers, why bother making a DVD. Oh, I forgot. A DVD disc costs pennies so it's cheaper than ever to dump trash on consumers. I'm so glad we have these forums to share this information.
Rating:
Summary: CutRate Bargain
Review: Think of it: You can own $92,000,000 worth of movie making for one ten-millionth of the production price: that's like a nickel per explosion. Can you walk up to anyone on the street, hand them a quarter and say, "Please blow five things up for me"? Of course you can; sometimes someone might even blow something up. But with this movie, it's a sure thing. This movie has its flaws. For the money spent to make it, you'd think someone would have thrown in some free looping so misinflected dialogue could be corrected. The chase and action scenes are rarely plausible (surely not every cannonball would have hit a powder keg). Whatever happened to the third ship that was at CutThroat Island? Wait, who cares? ... Geena Davis wears a corset. The DVD menu system on this disc is very strange. When you choose "Coming Attractions" from the "Theatrical Trailers" menu, you're presented with a list of eleven movies; no trailers, just the names of eleven movies and tiny pictures of their movie posters. When you choose "Jump to a Scene" from the main menu, you're given a choice of only nine scenes (there are thirty in the movie, which you *can* manually advance to). Fortunately, the movie itself looks and sounds great. Frank Langella and Maury Chaykin turn in characteristically good performances, Matthew Modine and Geena Davis acquit themselves well if not perfectly, and Christopher Masterson (Francis on "Malcolm in the Middle") does pretty well for a 15-year-old. While there are better pirate films out there, CutThroat Island isn't all that bad of a film. Granted, once in a while something will jar you out of your suspension of disbelief, but then Geena will walk by in her corset, buckling (or unbuckling!) her swash, and all will be forgiven. Don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Movie Ever Made
Review: "CutThroat Island" was without a doubt the worst movie i have ever seen. The actors were horrendous. It seemed as if they were reading the lines from a piece of paper during the shooting. The storyline was horrendous. There was no story. I saw this movie at my friends house. I told him about how good "Pirates of the Caribbean" and he said to watch this. That was a huge mistake. Within 2 minutes of the movie, i was thinking of excuses so that he would turn the movie off. I would rather stare at a full toilet than watch this horriffic movie. Where did this movie go wrong?...u may ask. It is quite simple. The whole movie was flawed. Actors sucked, plot sucked, script sucked, story sucked. They could have easily just blown up all the ships in the first five minutes of the movie and that would have made a better pirate movie. If i was u ...i would never see this movie. They spent 92 million dollars making this movie and made only about 12 million from theaters. Hmmm....i wonder why it did so bad.
Rating:
Summary: worst movie I ever saw!
Review: I saw this movie on a double date in college because the other guy recommended it. Everyone agreed it was just about the worst movie we had seen and vowed never to let him pick the movie again. The dialogue is cliched and not acted well. Everytime there was a set up for a line, we would say it a second before the actor said the exact same thing and we had never seen the movie! There are many errors in the film. See if you can spot the sneaker imprints in the sand as they run up the beach. I guess maybe you could rent it for laughs if you just want to see a really bad pirate movie. I'm going to avoid seeing it again, thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: Prepare to be Bored, Maties!
Review: Despite the all the pre-production hype, a stellar cast and an enormous budget, Renny Harlin's deplorable swashbuckling fiasco "Cutthroat Island" founders like a lead bowing ball. The film stars Geena Davis as supermodel / pirate Morgan Adams, Matthew Modine as a down-on-his-luck convict cum renaissance man and a plethora of some of the most boring pirates since Tyrone Power in the "Black Swan". The saving grace of the cast is Frank Langella as Morgan's sinister uncle Dawg, a pirate so evil and black hearted as to make Ken Lay seem like Mr. Rogers. It is obvious from the get-go that Harlin conducted little historical research in preparing this script for production. In Harlin's world, pirating was not only a career choice that could be practiced into old age and retirement, but was also a family business. Seems that Morgan's father and uncles (all pirates mind you) are each in possession of 1/3 of a coded treasure map that will lead it's owner to a fabulous fortune. Alas, rotten uncle Dawg has decided to cut out the rest of the family and it's up to Morgan and her crew of murderers with hearts of gold to thwart Dawg and take the gold for themselves. And then there's Matthew Modine. In what is perhaps one of the most unfortunate casting choices since Robert DiNero in "We're No Angels", Modine is atrocious as the convict turned cabin boy who begins to fall in love the voluptuous Morgan. Modine rattles off the trite and poorly crafted dialogue as if he's reading installation instructions for a garbage disposal. The "love" scenes between Modine and Davis carry less chemistry than a liberal arts major and the epiphanies the two experience when uncovering the silly, overly obvious clues were enough to bring out a resounding, "well, d'uh!" from the audience. The movie clocks in at just over two hours, which could have easily come in at under half that length had Harlin not felt compelled to shoot every frame of the action sequences in slow motion. Ships sail in slo-mo, everything explodes in slo-mo and Gina Davis' every move is captured at ½ speed. And for you blooper buffs out there, try to catch the scene when after a warehouse explodes (in slo-mo, mind you), a huge wooden keg lands right on Modine's head and doesn't even break his stride. I guess it's hard to hear the word "cut" when the set is blowing up around you. This dreadful film panders to every cliché in the book. Of course there's a treasure and of course there's a corresponding treasure map and off course there are plenty of running gun battles and of course there is a love story. But it is the manner in which these staples of pirate cinema were brought to the screen that make one wince. The only saving graces of the film is the set design and a few of the fighting sequences. The ships and Caribbean towns are realistic but not enough to distract the viewer from the absurdity of the tale itself. But if it's just action for action's sake that you are after, then by all means give "Cutthroat Island" a try. Just member those immortal words by the Gin Blossoms: "If you don't expect too much... you might not be let down".
Rating:
Summary: "Prepare to Bored, Maties!"
Review: One can almost pinpoint the instant in the opening scene when Gina Davis' career grinds to a screeching halt in ex-hubby Renny Harlin's deplorable swashbuckler wanna-be "Cutthroat Island". Davis plays Morgan Adams, a statuesque beauty of a pirate who's apparently just carrying on the family business of plundering and pillaging the Spanish Main. Seems that in Harlin's world, piracy is a life-time career that can be practiced into old age, for in the story Morgan has 3 uncles (all pirates), each in possession of 1/3 of a treasure map (gasp!) that will lead her and her band of murderers with hearts of gold to riches. In one of the most regrettable acts of miscasting in movie history, Matthew Modine is added to the mix as a down-on-his-luck renaissance man convict enlisted to help Morgan in her quest. Modine appears to struggle mightily with dialogue that is peppered with outdated slang and hefty doses of sexual innuendo and is never comfortable in the characters skin. There is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever between Davis and Modine and their scenes alone together bring what little appreciable action there is to a standstill. And their ham-handed deduction of the clues leading to the location of the treasure was so obvious as to be off the chart on the D'uh-meter. Clocked in at just over two hours, the movie could have easily been much shorter had Harlin not felt compelled to shoot at least half the film in slow motion. Everything explodes in this film as the lavish and meticulously crafted sets are destroyed in order to embellish the heroism of Davis' character as she and Modine slo-mo their way from one narrow escape to the next. Providing the movies sole bright spot is Frank Langella as Morgans sinister uncle Dawg; a pirate so fiendish as to make Blackbeard look like Mr. Rogers. Of course there's a treasure and of course there's a running gun battle and of course there's a love story just as in every other pirate movie ever made. It seems that Harlin was more interested in blowing up his characters than developing them and the result is testament. The vilification of this film is duly warranted to be sure, however there are indeed flash-bangs and eye candy aplenty to keep those filmgoers appeased who view such movies as "action for action's sake". Like the Gin Blossoms so aptly put it: "If you don't expect to much... you might not be let down."
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