[video] "Waterworld" (A Postview, copyright 1998 P-M Agapow)
"Mad Max 2" recast with lots of water and too much budget.
"Waterworld" is, of course, one of the most reviled and sneered at pictures of recent times. So fierce and scathing was the reaction to the picture, even before release, that it was virtually guaranteed to fail. It alone may have terminated the career of its director and star, Kevin Costner. But is it really that bad? In this cynical post "Starship Troopers" era, this question deserves to be asked.
For those who came in late - The icecaps have melted and the entire world is covered by water. Humans eke out an existence on the surface, on boats and in floating towns. Kevin Costner is a mutant, shunned by society and forced to rely only on himself. Strangely enough, in this film he also plays a mutant, shunned by society and forced to rely only on himself. He ends up in possession of Jeanne Tripplehorn and her surly charge, a child with a map of dry land tattooed on her back. There's also a bunch of pirates who, since they are lead by Dennis Hopper, must attack Costner psychotically until the end of the movie. Purportedly this is to get the map, but actually it's just so something happens between sailing sequences.
There are a lot of things wrong with "Waterworld". A decent attempt is made at swashbuckling action, with Costner biffing waves of pirate rabble. Unfortunately the Kev-ster is far too stodgy and aloof to make a charismatic hero, although to be fair this is probably the result of him trying to appear tough and self-reliant. There is much distressed leather and carefully draped rags for fashion. Should Jeanne Tripplehorn ever get her eyebrows plucked, she will be unable to act at all. Given the areactive chemistry generated between her and Costner, perhaps it would be best if she retired and sold the options on her name to some aspiring porn actress. And towards the end the movie
does
drag
a bit.
But having said that, "Waterworld" is not all that bad. The world is preposterous, but no more so that a lot of other films. As said above, there's some decent action. Dennis Hopper (whose career may not be destroyed by conventional weaponry) wheels out his violent psycho shtick again, but at least he is having some fun. There's explosions, some nicely setup jokes, a reasonably paced first section and some good photography of scenes set against the wide empty sea.
"Waterworld" is no trashier, and no more ambitious, than "Independence Day" or "Jurassic Park" or a number of other Big Dumb Pictures (BDPs). So why was it reviled so much? Certainly, if this was a B-grade film (directed by, say, Roger Corman) which instead of starring Costner, Hopper and Tripplehorn starred Charlie Sheen, Rutger Hauer and Tripplehorn, no-one would have batted an eyelid. Unless we credit purely random forces, it may be that "Waterworld" didn't play the publicity game well enough and entered a market that was unreceptive to a BDP. The extraordinary budget is another question. While it is an issue that is largely transparent to the movie-goer, it is sobering to think that on some level instead of "Waterworld" we could have got another "Gattaca", "In the Mouth of Madness" and "Until the End of the World". (Or another "Metropolitan", "Simple Men", "Jesus of Montreal" and handful of other independent pictures.) On this level, "Waterworld" is flagrantly wasteful, especially since the budget really doesn't show to any extent.
I would hesitate to recommend something that is so ephemeral. But count this review as a small rehabilitation of "Waterworld". While not a deep or great picture, the savaging it received was unjustified and may have prevented an actor/director from realising his full potential. [**/ok] and a lesser Errol Flynn on the Sid and Nancy scale.
"Waterworld" Released 1995. Directed by Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner Starring Kevin Costner. Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn Majorino.
-- Paul-Michael Agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Postviews SF/F reviews & mailing-list at www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews
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