Subject: Retrospective: Waterworld (1995)

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 30 Jul 1998 23:10:58 GMT

[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 ([email-masked])
Postviews SF/F reviews & mailing-list at www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews