CutThroat Island

The pirate movie requires a dashing male star and a dose of lightly self-deprecating humour. In this $90m revisionist swashbuckler, we get Geena Davis doing the all-action honours, and a hotchpotch script that seems to think pirate movies are so funny in themselves the need for more humour is superfluous. The plot's well worn: a treasure map is sought by the star, her ill-matched cohort Modine, dully rhubarbing villain Langella, and others. On screen the money has bought yards of 17th century Jamaican fixtures and fittings, a couple of attractive galleons, and a warehouse of Semtex. Harlin is never a man to shy away from the lure of Very Big Explosions, and, on a technical level, the spectacle's impressive. The only actor to make much of an impact is Malahide's colonial officer, who extracts tart irony from the merest crumbs.