It's obvious a great deal of money was spent on this production, and it has some visual value, but all that glitters is not gold, and this movie is more pyrite. Two big problems mar what could have been a decent adventure yarn: casting and editing. Geena Davis is marvelous in the right role. This wasn't one of them. I kept imagining what an actress like Sigourney Weaver might have done with the part. Matthew Modine never has and never will be Leading Man material. Second-banana comedy relief, maybe, but never a primary leading role. Frank Langella is a marvelous talent, especially given something offbeat, but he isn't given much to work with here. Everyone else hits their marks and says their lines but there isn't much energy to any of the performances. As for editing, at least 20-to-30-minutes of overlong fight scenes and other unnecessary jabbering could have been left on the cutting room floor to tighten up the running time. It's nice that Davis and her new director husband Renny had a chance to go on a paid "working honeymoon", but like looking at someone else's vacation slideshow, it becomes tedious fairly quickly. With different casting and judicious editing (or perhaps unbiased direction) this might have been a better draw and not killed off Corolco (although they were already circling the drain like Orion), but as-is it's certainly not very engaging.
Review of Cutthroat Island
