Waterworld (1995)

Simply Perfect

Powerful

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I saw this when it came out and loved it--but Dennis Hopper was a really bad memory, over-acted and dull. HOWEVER, I had to see it again just because of its premise. I still love it, and it's not Dennis Hopper who bugs me any more--except for the cheap-trick eye-socket displays. He blends well with his dystopian setting, plus looks good in an eye patch. Now, in this week's re-viewing Jeanne Tripplehorn sticks in my craw--yechh!! I don't mind dumb, necessarily, or aggressive--but combined they make your average back-up villains. Having the female lead come on as dumb and aggressive was too much--nearly unwatchable. Junior female lead Tina Majorino was doing a good job in her role, so i kept swimming. I had to see the whole world of a submerged Earth with its nautical and mechanical ingenuity, and particular social problems. It is a fable beautifully told--no CGI--and a worthy part of Kevin Costner's legacy.

I recently watched this movie again after seeing it as a kid.What appeals to me are the fine attention to details and things that actually make sense logically - something what lacks in soooo many of the modern sci-fi flicks.It's well thought out and delivered, I was thoroughly enjoying this movie as a die-hard Sci-Fi watcher, I believe it to be better than 90% of the modern post-apocalyptic movies.Give it a shot, I do not get the prejudice of people when it comes to this movie, it's immersive and enjoyable because it does not break your immersion with stupid logic-holes or over-done CGI.

I don't get the hate for Waterworld, and I can't wrap my head around the fact that it was was a ginormous flop at the box office. I suppose there has to be one incredibly underrated gem of an adventure film every generation (John Carter comes to mind), and I'm OK with such films becoming cult classics years later, or loved by a small, loyal faction of people, but I still can't see how such a creative, entertaining piece of cinema was so ignored. The best way I can describe my impression of it is Mad Max set adrift at sea. And what a premise. Kevin Costner and team craft an earthy steam punk dystopia where nearly all of our planet has been covered in oceans, hundreds of years in the future. Costner plays a lone adventurer called the Mariner, a humanoid who has evolved to the point where he sports gills, and can breathe underwater. He's on a quest to find dry land, and is hindered at every turn by a one eyed tyrannical warlord called Deacon (the one, the only Dennis Hopper), who is on a mad hunt for oil of any kind, laying waste to anything in his way. He runs his empire off of a giant, dilapidated freighter ship, and commands a gnarly army of scoundrels. If they made a post apocalyptic super villain mortal kombat, he would probably face off against Fury Road's Immortan Joe. Costner is a dysfunctional beast who somewhat befriends a lost woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her plucky daughter (Tina Majorino in what should have been a star making turn), venturing forth into the vast blue on a rickety raft, meeting all sorts of sea bound weirdos on their journey. Kim Coates shows up with a whoville hairdo and an indecipherable accent as a sunbaked pervert who's probably been afloat for a decade. The film is pure adventure, and loves it's target audience unconditionally, which begs me to question why the masses savagely bit the hand that graciously feeds them. No matter, it's a winner regardless of how it was received, and has probably gained a following that they never thought they'd arrive with when they made it. The cast extends further with work from Costner regulars and newcomers alike, including Michael Jeter, Robert Joy, Jack Black, Robert Lasardo, Sean Whalen, Lee Arenberg and R.D. Call. No one who loves a good old adventure can turn this down, and I'm still chafed that my knowledge of its reputation held me back from watching it for so many years. Let that happen no more. Either you're won over by an inventive, balls out adventure epic like this, or you're not.

Waterworld is not an adaptation from a book. That right there is proof for research and creativity ! The first script draft was ten years ago but Costner re-wrote it. Waterworld might be the most under appreciated movie of all time, and is a very important contribution to sci- fi, for the amazing decor and infrastructures, the phenomenal music, the number of people hired to play in it... No other movie has bothered to tackle the same subject, because even with CGIs it requires a lot of effort and work, something Costner did. I don't think people understand how brilliant Costner matches this role so perfectly, which is very hard; If you don't get it, then you just don't get acting. This is not Rocky Balboa 'brrrruubbrrruruhuhughg lightheaded" acting, it took Costner a lot of effort and energy to play a masked cold angered mariner and does a few stunts at age 40 (he had a stuntman surfer doing the others). The Media of course, deliberately trashed this movie for recreation instead of praising the fact that it's incredibly ahead of its time think about it, no one had ever come up with that concept before, but Costner did. And then there's the issue of forums: what we call the trolls, those who tag along and criticize just to criticize. The Media demonstrated its immaturity and autoproclaimed right to unfairly bash without taking any responsibilities. Costner was scandalously trashed by the press coalition that destroyed his marriage, they slandered, insinuating he had an affair, they kept reporting it in the tabloids headlines, reporting there were multiple incidents on set (most of it because of natural hazards that sunk a set and stuck Costner up on the sail), just because Universal didn't pay them to go watch the movie. They even said Costner's hair line was CGI effects ! And of course a ton of people hopped on the bandwagon. The story itself is great, a future covered by water and only one hope remains that a dry land still floats. One girl shipped into a basket wears markings that are coordinates to dryland. Her guardian Helen and an inventor protect her from the Smokers who have heard about her tattoo thanks to a leak (the Nord spy). Along comes the Mariner who can swim under the very bottom of the ocean, to pick up dirt and trade it on atolls but he is captured by the habitants labeled as a threat and a spy. The Mariner is released from his cage by Helen and the three take off on his trimaran in the middle of the Smoker attack, but the Smokers are determined to run him down and recover the girl. The Mariner then realizes the girl's markings are key indications but only he knows that the world has sunk and been covered up by water. They are ambushed by the Smokers who blow up his boat and kidnap the girl. The Mariner and Helen survive thanks to Grigor who spotted them up from his gas balloon but the Mariner refuses to run after the Smokers and decides to return to his destructed boat to recover the few objects left and sees drawings of dry land that match his national-geographic magazines and understands she is indeed a native of dry land. The final showdown takes set on the Deacon's boat that is overrun by the Mariner and leaves in the company of Helen, Grigor and the sheriff of the atoll on their way to dry land that Grigor has finally figured out the coordinates.I understand that at the time people were bothered by questions and I will urge them to go watch the complete version for three hours, it's out there on DVD and internet, and I guarantee you will get the answers and enjoy the complete version. It makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE. It's pivotal for the development of the story and characters, especially the Mariner. You look at Costner's performance in Field of dreams, Bull Durham, Dances with Wolves and Waterworld, not one of them are similar but Waterworld definitively reaches another level. The cast around him is very good, there are mostly very good characters, Hopper is hysterical but criticized because he's not "cruel" enough and looks more like a prankster. Maybe heiq, but he blows up an entire atoll and the Mariner's boat so I think that's good proof he is cruel. The negative would be the CGI - it is true that if you know the basics of CGI, you can spot the anomalies - the explosions that are offsync, the leviathan that swallows up Costner, when Costner has his boots off and his bare foot and back to wearing boots several times.... those are the regular anomalies that make this wonderful production unprofessional. Laziness ? Perhaps. But it was 1995. It would be a shame if Waterworld is not played again on TV in the full extended cut because the fans and the younger generations or even those who never saw it at the time, would discover a fantastic movie. If you have good taste, you can only enjoy this wonderful ride that leads you all the way to dryland.