What seemed like a dubious proposition on paper plays even more dubiously onscreen, as "Cutthroat Island" strenuously but vainly attempts to revive the thrills of old-fashioned pirate pictures.

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.

It's not possible to believe that Ms. Davis is the highly respected captain of a pirate ship, and it's not even fun to try.

...a larger-than-life (yet comfortably familiar) premise that is, at the outset, employed to engaging, briskly-paced effect...