Cutthroat Island

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: December 22, 1995

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

37	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Peter Stack

It's a swashbuckling extravaganza, but Davis is not convincing. And before anyone objects, it's not because she's a woman. Get out already! This is the '90s, and women can do anything. But they can't escape from a lousy movie any better than a man can. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Cutthroat Island proves too stupidly smutty for children, too cartoonish for sane adults and not racy enough for anyone who regards Ms. Davis in a tight-laced bodice as its main attraction. The only serious incentive for seeing this spectacle is a fascination with extravagance, since Cutthroat Island is indeed scenic, hectic and big. Read full review

Barbara Shulgasser

The movie is a turgid, swollen, wheezing old contraption, a crashing bore of special effects in which the most exciting moment gives us two ships sitting in water sending cannon balls at each other for what seems like hours on end. Read full review

Desson Thomson

It takes a two-hour act of will to keep facing the screen during this moribund movie. Every cliffhanger is enough to make you a cliff jumper. Davis and Modine are almost transcendentally unappealing, as they weather dull sword fights, ship-to-ship exchanges and other action-movie banalities. Read full review

Steve Daly

Who thought letting Harlin steer into Captain Blood territory was a sage idea? To a piece that’s intended as a comic, tongue-in-cheek romp, he brings the same brutal, slo-mo pyrotechnics that lit up both his hits (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger) and his biggest previous miss (The Adventures of Ford Fairlane). Somewhere, Errol Flynn is wincing. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

For all its derring-do, Cutthroat Island is sluggish, flat, tiresome. Watching it is like being stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for an endless two hours. [22 Dec 1995, p.4G]

Jay Boyar

Cutthroat Island isn't so much a movie as it is a burial at sea. As a longtime Geena Davis fan, I hope she won't go down with the ship. [22 Dec 1995, p.M10]

John Hartl

Director Renny Harlin and his writers, Robert King and Marc Norman, appear to have spent many hours watching bad pirate movies, and they seem determined to repeat every pieces-of-eight cliche. [22 Dec 1995, p.G8]

Rita Kempley

There's not much adventure on these high seas. This buccaneering boondoggle is more like a slow voyage aboard the PMS Pinafore. [22 Dec 1995, p.C06]