Cutthroat Island (Renny Harlin, 1995)

One of the very few swashbuckler films that were produced during the 90s, Cutthroat Island is a movie that gives to the viewer efficient excitement. Made in the old and always winning recipe of the hidden treasure the movie has some really catchy action scenes and a story that mixes humour with adventure. Pirates are a theme that cinema loves, they are beyond words charming, their manners, their clothes and their lust for gold. Here we have for protagonist a female pirate that makes the movie even more fulfilling and exciting, because we are so much used in pirate movies that are male dominated, that a woman and especially the always alluring Geena Davis was an element most needed. Yes folks there is enough thrill in that movie to fill a whole deserted island, from crazy and dangerous escapes till baroque ship battles, the film is clearly enjoying itself and it gives to the audience one of the very best adventure movies of the 90s. A film hugely underrated, panned by most critics, for reasons that no one understands, the film has a clearly playful pace that makes it a movie that can be digested with great pleasure, Cutthroat Island is a moment that the virtues of entertainment cinema are having a blast and a feast and they come to the spectator as an elixir of good energy. The cast of Matthew Modine, Geena Davis and the always incredible, here as villain, Frank Langella, who we all remember for his memorable performance as Skeletor in Masters Of The Universe, are fully prepared for an adventure movie and give their best to make the characters vivid and charming and the only thing that stays after all this is why this movie is so notoriously forgotten and nobody speaks about it anymore. Critics have some kind of allergy for straightforward entertainment movies, they seem to find them shallow and pointless, but truth says that Cutthroat Island is a very imaginative production that holds all the virtues of a great old-school swashbuckler movie that makes us all remember with nostalgia Errol Flynn's movies.