Women of Action: Geena Davis – Cutthroat Island

Although Cutthroat Island is one of the biggest financial flops in movie history, I can’t help but enjoy all of the swashbuckling madness as Geena Davis and Matthew Modine go 2 on 1 against the amazing Frank Langella. The massive loss in money is definitely not due to its lack of a strong female character. Captain Morgan Adams (Geena Davis) could have been one of the classic female action heroes of all time if only her film hadn’t been thrown out like yesterdays newspaper. I, for one, quite enjoy Cutthroat Island. I feel like the pirate genre is similar to the Western; not only did they both once rule the big screen, but they’ve both found it very difficult to return to prominence in recent years. All of this is forgetting that Disney has made its own treasure from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, but Disney could make half a billion from a movie about a dust storm.

I’ve never been the type to get bashful when a woman has her breasts pushed up and nearly exposed for the world to see and I won’t start now. I’ve also never been one to taut the sexiness of Geena Davis but she really brought her A game in this one. Maybe it was the fact that she had just wed director Renny Harlin during production and was consolidating all her sexiness for this exact moment. While Geena wasted no time showing a little butt crack and some fantastic cleavage, she also kicked a serious amount of ass pirating all over the Caribbean. There have definitely been a few famous female pirates in history but I dare you to show me one with this level of action aptitude.

Fresh off of directing Die Hard 2 and the underrated Cliffhanger, Renny Harlin used his innate ability to create excellent chase scenes and over-expensive and over-explosive set pieces that helped to send this movie way over budget. He was able to place star Geena Davis into as many wet outfits and deadly devices as he could think of. But like any action star worthy of a film of this magnitude, Davis never seemed out of place as the deadly Morgan Adams.

I would recommend that if you haven’t watched Cutthroat Island in some time that you give it another chance. It’s filled with a few really fun action scenes and one of my favorite sea battle ever.