Review of Waterworld (1995) by Kai82 — 04 Dec 2020

This movie is famous for being awful, a finical disaster and harming the career of Kevin Costner. A short description would be “Mad Max” on water instead of dessert wastelands. I think while this movie has its problems it is better than its reputation.

It was an ambitious project and they made some mistakes on top of some production hell. Lets start with the setting and story. It is set in a future where Earth is completely flooded. The surviving humans have adapted to a lifestyle on the ocean.

There are all kinds of groups like merchants, travelers or raiders. The Mariner played by Kevin Costner has an advantage as he has gills and has completely adapted to the aquarian lifestyle. He is drawn into an adventure against his will when he meets Helena and the girl Enola who seems to have a concretion to a legend of dry land (A myth, fairy-tale or better said urban legend of their time).

Because of this the girl is also hunted by the smokers who are the raiders / pirates of the sees. For itself I think the story has potential but there are some poor twists or ideas that do not work (I will give some examples later with a spoiler warning).

The characters are fine for me. I think Kevin Costner does a good performance and is not to blame for the failings. He is the typical reluctant hero hardened by life but underneath a great heroic man.

Dennis Hopper is Deacon the leader of the smokers. He is an enjoyable evil villain. For the others I will also praise Jeanne Tripplehorn as Helen and Tina Majorino as Enola. There are no great missteps here.

The sets look amazing. They made the decision to shoot the scenes on water. This gave a really good look but made so many problems. It was hard and made the cost of the movie explode. There are also many rumors about quarrels during production.

I think the problems harmed the movie. While it is not awful there are some things that destroy the immersion. There is the for me proven theory that as long you are entertained enough by a movie you can get away with some strange decisions.

There are a few unbelievable things in this movie. Slight spoiler warning as I give you 2 examples from the movie: You have a car chase sequence in this movie and Enola cant swim. Yes you read this correct.

Both ideas are beyond stupidity in this setting. End of spoilers. There are some other smaller problems in the story. Also nothing is that original or great to improve this movie. You get the feeling that you have seen it all better elsewhere.

This might sound too negative as I must repeat it is neither that bad or a disaster. Overall I enjoyed this movie and repeat that it is better than its reputation. I admit that it has some problems that other might dislike more than I do.

Worth watching but earned its place in movie history ecause of the wrong reasons.