Subject: Retrospective: Waterworld (1995)

From: [email-masked] (Monika Huebner)
Date: 5 Aug 1998 05:07:24 GMT

Waterworld

A film review by Monika Huebner
Copyright 1998 Monika Huebner

Director: Kevin Reynolds
Cast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino
and others

In WATERWORLD the darkest prophecies have come true: a radical change
of climate melted the pole caps, the world is flooded with water and
the few survivors live on makeshift water vessels. But if you thought
that would make people stick together you're wrong. Even in those hard
times some bad guys, the Smokers, only seek to draw profit from other
people's misery. They, too, have heard the legend of Dryland.
Supposedly there is one last place on Earth not covered with water,
but nobody knows where. To find Dryland they need a map that is
tattooed on the back of Enola (Tina Majorino), a little girl. The
Smokers try to get their hands on her, but they have to get past her
protector first: the Mariner (Kevin Costner), a mutated half amphibian
man.

There are disaster movies and movies that are a disaster. WATERWORLD
belongs to the latter category. When the movie hit the theaters this
was amply discussed. Surprisingly it was a box office hit in Europe.
Maybe over here more people want to see for themselves whether a movie
is really as bad as the critics say it is.

Considering the set and the costume you have to wonder why this movie 
was almost as expensive in the making as James Cameron's TITANIC. At
least TITANIC gives you an idea of where all the money has gone. The
set of WATERWORLD looks like the designers got it from scrap yards all
over the US, so what was so expensive? The costumes? Hardly, unless
the torn rags were designed by some highly paid couturier. Who knows.
Most of the set was blown up at the end of the movie. Who cares about
the resulting damages to the environment. 

There isn't much to be said about the acting. It's like watching a
group of amateur actors performing a play they wrote themselves. Not
even Dennis Hopper turns in a convincing performance. Had this been
the admission test for an acting school the candidate would have
flunked.

The same is true for Kevin Costner as the Mariner. Didn't it cross
his mind that he has outgrown the part of "youthful hero"? I guess
not. Otherwise he wouldn't have set out to ridicule himself with the
world watching. Lack of hair isn't very well concealed by just
letting the remaining hair grow longer, and having it pasted to your
head because it's wet all the time doesn't help either. At least we
get to admire the Mariner's gills. It is never mentioned exactly  how
long Earth has been covered with water, but a few centuries are not
long enough for such a mutation to occur. The term "ichthyosapiens"
is one of the few laughs the movie produces. Is that good or bad?

The less said about the two major female characters the better. They
only serve one purpose: eye-candy. Of course Helen (Jeanne
Tripplehorn) immediately offers to fish and cook for the Mariner if
he takes them with him and her foster daughter Enola will do the
same. The disastrous change of climate at least had the positive side
effect of ending women's lib for good. It's back to the idyllic days
of stone age. According to latest research that idyll wasn't what it
was cracked up to be, but that isn't very likely to influence the way
women are depicted in movies made in Tinseltown. The function of
women in movies very often is just to look good and serve the hero in
every way possible.

Logic isn't even tried in WATERWORLD. Even if all glaciers and the
pole caps were to melt not all the continents would be covered with
water. There just isn't enough water on Earth. It's preposterous to
assume that only a few small islands remain that can't be found for
centuries. But in spite of the fact that the Earth became a water
desert one tomatoe plant survived (for centuries, again ??). And were
did the chain smokers grow their tobacco? Probably from a swimming
factory with some replicators borrowed from Star Trek. Not to mention
the refinery needed to produce fuel for the Smoker's various rides.
There is more to discover on a closer look, but it's not worth the
trouble.

One of the biggest wastes of money in the history of movie making.
All existing copies should be burned in a big bonfire on Walpurgis
Night so the witches can have a decent dance. But that would hurt the
environment again.

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