Cutthroat Island (1995) Movie Review

Cutthroat Island is a 1995 action adventure swashbuckling film directed by Renny Harlin and written by Robert King and Marc Norman. The film stars Renny's wife at the time, Geena Davis, and was considered to be some sort of vanity project because of this. It also features Matthew Modine, Frank Langella, Maury Chaykin, Patrick Malahide and Stan Shaw in the cast. Originally pitched to Disney's CEO Michael Eisner, who considered making it a Pirates of the Caribbean film, only to be turned down, writers James Gorman and Michael Frost Beckner went to independent production company Carolco Pictures which greenlit the film. Harlin was hired to direct and the movie changed into a pirate adventure featuring a female protagonist, the budget was increased to somewhere around 92 or 115 million dollars. Once released, the film was a huge box office bomb, only making 16 million dollars back, this pretty much damaged the career of the people involved and gave the film a bad reputation.

Set in 1668, the film follows dreaded captain Morgan Adams as a female pirate leading her men to Cutthroat Island, but she needs someone who can read Latin, so they rescue enslaved thief William Shaw, who claims to be fluent in the language. What follows is a series of obstacles, usually set by Morgan's nefarious uncle and the British forces, that keep our heroes from getting the valuable treasure hidden in the infamous Island.

Far from the awful mess it's reputation might lead you to be believe it is, Cutthroat Island is a well-oiled machine that nowadays comes off as fresh, well crafted, exciting and potent because of its dazzling spectacle that relies heavily on great sets and impactful practical effects and real stunts that are wonderfully captured by real film cameras, as in stark celluloid. All of these elements kind of set it apart from the usual muck that gets distributed to theaters or the type of movie-making format that arrives directly at streaming services. While people at the time might have been somewhat resistant to the charms of an expensive production that could only deliver light fun, it seems like it was ahead of its time since films like Pirates of the Caribbean would come later on and become hits with audiences.

While the character writing is not particularly thoughtful, we do have some nice interactions and a great chemistry between the cast members. The tone is well balanced all around with some funny touches on top of the dynamic action. Directing-wise I gotta say that Harlin can pull off some really intricate set-pieces, and this film has an abundance of them, but he is sort of lost when it comes to the more normal sequences and his work can come off as pedestrian there, even when aided by cinematographer Peter Levy. The sets and production design do the heavy lifting and help the film visually.

I do like how we see the usual day-to-day proceedings of Morgan's pirate crew and how the fact that she is a female pirate, while being strange to some, isn't really a problem for a lot of the other characters in order to modernize the film to a degree. Davis is very active throughout the film, both as a character driving the story forwards and physically engaged in several battles. Morgan has her moments of glory and the movie never really gazes at her in sleazy ways just for the sake of it, so it's not just eye-candy for male audiences.

I do recommend this unrelenting roller coaster to anyone interested in the film both because of its mark in recent film history and because of its most obvious virtues that were underrated at the time. It kind of deserves a second look. Give it another chance, especially if you enjoyed stuff like The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), another Harlin-Davis collab.

Devil Hunter Yohko (1990) Anime OVA Series Review

Mamono Hantā Yōko - Devil Hunter Yohko is a 1990 action comedy fantasy anime OVA mini-series that was released until 1995 and consists of six episodes. It was directed by Katsuhisa Yamada, Hisashi Abe, Jun'ichi Sakata and Akiyuki Shinbo with scripts by Sukehiro Tomita, Hisaya Takabayashi, Katsuhisa Yamada, Tatsuhiko Urahata. The cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Konami Yoshida, Yūji Mitsuya, Hiromi Tsuru, Chieko Honda and Noriko Hidaka. Aya Hisakawa also gives us some wonderful songs on the soundtrack, which take prominence as a way to sell the series. The success of the OVA series was enough to warrant a manga created by Gaku Miyao in 1996.

Teenager Yohko lived a normal life in Japan but one day she finds out that every woman in her family becomes a powerful demon hunter, who must go after the forces of evil once they are unleashed. Backed by her grandmother, her friend Chikako and an unwanted apprentice named Azusa, Yohko must both struggle between her new life as a demon fighter and maintain her virginity or else she will lose her abilities.

This coming-of-age fantasy action show with strong ecchi elements plays out like a normal storyline involving a girl that comes from a lineage of demon hunter women who battle the forces of darkness with their powers and abilities. This, of course, comes with the price of having to neglect some typical teenage stuff in favor of her duty. This is where some of the main conflicts in the show are found but none of it really becomes the focus as every episode changes the stakes drastically. Every chapter is a self-contained story, this episodic structure could have worked better if the show had far more episodes instead of just six (well, five actually but we can't count episode 4). So even though the episodes are fun and captivating you end up wanting a lot more.

I think my issue is that most of the series doesn't have a throughline outside of just presenting the main set-up in its near perfect first episode. The rest are just secluded plots with their own narrative, not relating much to each other. Not only that, but episode four is just a clip show that consists of new music videos with some footage from the series. It's of no real interest outside of some cute new animation but it works as something you can put on the background. Either way, the other storylines aren't bad, they are fun and playful while having enough emotional load to be worthwhile.

I gotta say some things about the series are quite disturbing or creepy, it invokes scenarios and images that are somewhat crude and daring in how much they want to deliver in the fanservice department but while having such inappropriate elements. An example is the female teacher harassing a male student or the several panty shots of the girls, some who are very young. It's weird but it's all greatly animated and brought to life that it looks nice. The animation itself is a highlight as the amazing battles between the main girl and the demons are outstanding in how majestic and epic they are executed. This is something that really couldn't have been as polished and detailed if it was a proper TV series, so the lack of episodes ultimately works out.

With great technical aspects and some entertaining episodes, Devil Hunter Yohko is a highly recommended retro anime series that will be more than enough for vintage anime fans.

D.E.B.S (2003-2004) Movie Review

D.E.B.S is a 2004 action spy comedy movie written and directed by Angela Robinson and based on her short film from 2003. The film stars Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki, Jill Ritchie, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jessica Cauffiel. Robinson began the project as a comic book, doing the art herself during college. POWER UP then gave her $20,000 in order to do a short film and pitch the idea to a studio. The original 2003 film was a short subject filled with color, very frenetic and action-packed, it was also shot on film, something that was ditched when moving onto the feature film department, opting to go for a digital look instead. While the film did badly at the box office and got a less than stellar reception it became a cult hit among queer audiences as the years went by.

A secret test recruits female students for the D.E.B.S. (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength) organization, this paramilitary academy takes care of dangerous spy missions. We follow four D.E.B.S, Max, Janet, Dominique and Amy, as they foil the plans of a villainess known as Lucy Diamond, this supercriminal accidentally begins a relationship with Amy after a failed date. Now Amy must choose between her loyalty to D.E.B.S and her love for Lucy.

I gotta give it to this movie because it takes very refreshing and new twists that you won't really expect out of a movie like this. Usually a movie like this would be an origin story as the protagonist gets into the D.E.B.S program, maybe reluctantly, and gets introduced to the spy world while having to carry a mission and save the world. Maybe there's a romantic interest in the form of a tech guy who is handsome or something. That's typically how it would go, it's a template that exists. However, this movie is nothing like that. You are thrown into a strange but likable universe where everything has already been established and the initial exposition scenes explaining the concept of D.E.B.S is all you get in the form of context in order to follow the narrative that follows, which is a lighthearted lesbian relationship building itself among two girls in the middle of two antagonistic forces, the bad girl falls in love with the girl from the good side. Nothing groundbreaking but there's charm to the fact that it's not only a mainstream movie but also because of how it plays with the genre.

What could be a problem is just how bold it is by dropping you in the middle of this world without proper guidance, the information that you need is there, but you don't really get to connect with any character immediately because everything goes by so fast and the characters themselves aren't given much to stand out aside from some small character quirks that don't really flesh them out but simply give you a vague impression of who these girls could be. Further rewatches diminish these flaws though. A couple of the DEBS girls escape this as the main conflict progresses but for the most part they are one note. Another thing is that the villainess assassin doesn't immediately look the part, so it can catch you off guard just how average she looks and how pedestrian this spy and assassin world comes off as.

With this being one of the first major films shot on digital cameras you kind of get some rather unpolished or TV-level images, the quality isn't really terrible but the resolution and the frame rate will make it look slightly more cheap and poor when compared to movies shot on film. The technology wasn't quite there and this was one of the early entries in that category so it's excusable that a few shots maybe aren't up to par, especially whenever a green screen is involved. Other than that, it's not a badly composed or shot film, the director manages to organize everything inside the frame in a stylish way and the way the action sequences are shot do have some momentum and rhythm, there's a lot of energy behind them and they don't rely too heavily on CGI at this point. I gotta say that there's a limited amount of shootouts and fights, so don't expect any kind of astounding spectacle. It's nothing as explosive as the 2000's Charlie's Angels movies but it's also not as clunky as some of the bottom of the barrel stuff could be.

When it comes to the execution of the material this one has an interesting perspective since the director mostly plays it like a very earnest relationship film with innovative gender and sexual dynamics that just happens to have both spy film elements and romcom elements. It could have been seen as exploitative with the girls in schoolgirl uniforms and such but the quirky humor and the fact that it never sexualizes the girls kind of keep it from feeling dirty or sleazy. Aside from some adult conversations this could have been a Disney Channel movie to be honest.

A highly recommended piece of 2000’s camp that will surely be a comfort film for many.