WATERWORLD
A film review by Eric Grossman
Copyright 1995 LOS ANGELES INDEPENDENT
For its first half hour, WATERWORLD looked as if it might be a decent movie. Huge sets and big action sequences offered some hope that this film would not be the total disaster many had predicted. Then the trouble started and WATERWORLD became a big, overproduced bore.
In this monstrosity, Kevin Costner plays the Mariner, a mutation that is mostly man but has gills and fish feet. The Mariner travels the ocean on his tricked-out trimaran, trading, scavenging and fighting off evil bad guys called Smokers. The Smokers are lead by the Deacon (Dennis Hopper) and their goal is to find a young child named, Enola (vociferously played by Tina Majorino), who bears a birthmark that holds the way to a mythic place called Dryland.
The Mariner arrives at a huge atoll to trade pure dirt (a most precious commodity) for hydro (fresh water). While there he meets Enola and her mother Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn). When the Smokers attack the atoll so they can capture Enola, the Mariner escapes with the help of Helen and the young girl and the three head out into the open sea. At first, the Mariner doesn't want their company but he eventually grows fond of them and together they set out to find Dryland.
Up until the point where the Mariner escapes the atoll, WATERWORLD moves along in a swift, entertaining fashion. After that, the story slows to a crawl and all we are left with are the paper thin characters. Director Kevin Reynolds has a good eye but he and cinematographer Dean Semler can't make up for the lackluster script by Peter Rader and David Twohy.
The only thing as bad as the writing in this film is the acting. For his part, Costner never seems to find the right tone. His Mariner oscillates between a tough, uncaring anti-hero and a sensitive `90's guy. Hopper, playing yet another villain, looks as if he sleepwalked through his role as the Deacon. He has a few good one-liners but he is never menacing and that does not make for much drama. As the poorly scripted Helen, Jeanne Tripplehorn, no matter what she tries, cannot make her character interesting. She stares a lot and yells often at the Mariner but we never really learn much about her and she does not give us much reason to care to.
Technically, WATERWORLD is a great achievement, except I would like to know why on a film that costs $175 million, things still look fake. Production designer Dennis Gassner's sets, which include the atoll, a super-tanker and the trimaran give a sense of where some of that enormous budget went. The editing by Peter Boyle is slick and James Newton Howard's score, while it is nothing memorable, works just fine. Unfortunately, despite all its technical bravado, WATERWORLD is a lousy movie.
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