From http://wallpoper.com/images/00/35/65/27/cutthroat-island_00356527.jpg |
Dir. Renny Harlin
France-Germany-Italy-USA
Film #31 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
From http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/cutthroat-island-1995.jpg |
Fantasy and pulp storytelling,
the kind that existed before cinema and comics in literature, is a vast ocean,
not to create a pun, that I have only sunk my toes in into but has provided a
vast amount of imagination and sincerity that is still effecting even to
someone like me from this century. Cutthroat
Island was clearly an attempt to evoke fiction from the past through pirate
fantasy, and it immediately brings up this fact and reminds me how all of this
entertainment fully connects together in a web. It starts with mythology, once
worshiped as actual religious belief from the Greeks to the Vikings, and is now
at the point of superhero films in dozens in the summer season. One has to
wonder however if the mass audience is aversive to films that draw on classical
storytelling for the adventure genre – not coloured by current fads, no hot
celebrities, no cool new band doing the soundtrack or McDonald’s tie-ins – with
only the Indiana Jones, and to an
extent Pirates of the Caribbean, films
being the exception. Considering what happened with John Carter [Of Mars] (2012) last year, which I did see at the
cinema and quite liked, it is surprising that a film like that failed miserably
at the box office. Cutthroat Island
has major flaws, but to think that this died so badly at the box office as it
did, ending the production company Carolco
Pictures through bankruptcy*, and was critically mauled is baffling. We get
successful historical dramas, but pulpy, rollicking adventures with the few
exceptions seem to be financial poison.
From http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/lionsgate/Cutthroat_1_lg._V219329200_.jpg |
After her father dies, the
daughter of a pirate captain Morgan (Geena
Davis) takes control of his ship and goes on a journey to collect together
three pieces of a map that will locate Cutthroat Island and the hoardings of
Spanish gold hidden there. It is an exceptionally lavish production; barring
some obvious (and horrifically dated) superimpositions of actors falling from
large heights, which seems an odd mistake to have in the film in hindsight,
this feature stands up in terms of technical and visual quality onscreen. One
wishes this sort of production still existed even, with elaborate stunts and
constructed sets like pirate galleons for the actors to fight in and around. It
is the kind of craftsmanship that feels lost in a lot of mainstream cinema now,
and it is regrettable that this sort of production value was easily dismissed
back then. Great looking films are still made now, but there are many that look
poor in comparison, bland, grey and/or digitally touched up. The only film I’ve
seen that used current aesthetic tools properly was John Carter and that did a swan dive theatrically. If there is a
major failing with Cutthroat Island,
which was clearly a passion project for Renny
Harlin and his wife Davis in how
hard both of them work, it’s that the adventure in the film does not have
enough friction or suspense to it to fully engage. This is a more realistic
take on pirates – still a romp, but it doesn’t have a giant Kraken or an undead
crew – and while the heroes are elaborate in their look or personalities, Davis as a strong female lead and Matthew Modine as the potential love
interest in a relationship where she carries the sword, there is little threat
to them to work from. While he has played two of the most evil men in history, Skeletor
and Richard Nixon, Frank Langella is
not given a lot to do as the evil pirate captain also after the treasure, and
neither his crew or the British colonial soldiers after Morgan are much of an
opposing force. Without the supernatural tone of the Pirates of the Caribbean series or the dramatic incidents every
page from a good piece of adventure literature, Cutthroat Island cannot completely sustain one’s interest in the
narrative.
From http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/cutthroat-island-1995-frank-langella-pic-5.jpg |
Nonetheless it has more virtues
to it than its reputation has suggested. The sense of quality to the film is still
there regardless of its imperfections. It feels sad to think that the epic
yarn, rather than the historical epic that usually does well at the box office
still, rarely succeeds when a new one is made or ends up being compromised to
reach a wider audience. This is even more a problem as, thanks to audio books,
I’m acquiring a sweet tooth for this type of storytelling but there’s few
cinematic equivalents to feast on. It also feels like a perfect film to end
this season on as it shows that what can qualify as the ‘worst’ can also be
damned not necessarily for bad quality but because it is not in the current
taste of the audience of the time, shows the follies of marketing and budget
spending (I was going to cover Heaven’s
Gate (1980) for this final review, but that can wait another day), and the
fickleness of what succeeds and what is savaged in reviews. I am not suggesting
Cutthroat Island is a great film,
and I’ve yet to see a film where Renny
Harlin goes beyond being a solid filmmaker and punches up into great vulgar
filmmaking, but this whole season has felt more like a prodding of old pop
culture to try and see what people were thinking about with cinema even in a
decade (the nineties) I grew up in as a child. With Cutthroat Island it’s probably the lesser of two evils when put
against some films that are far more worse, and were likely covered on this
blog even outside of this season; at least Cutthroat
Island has some production quality to it while I have seen some utterly
unfortunate films even in my day-to-day filming habit.
*Releasing Show Girls (1995) the same year probably didn’t help either.
From http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32500000/Cutthroat-Island-geena-davis-32511931-1200-802.jpg |
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