Review of Waterworld (1995) by Trergfirestorm — 13 Jul 2023

Probably, it’s not worth reminding once again that in 1995 “Water World” made a splash on the contrary. Even before the premiere, the film was accompanied by multiple scandals, a significant overspending of the original budget, relations on the set were, to put it mildly, strained, a few weeks before the end of filming, the director left the project, the theatrical version was stolen by filibusters a few months before the premiere ... The hundred and seventy millionth colossus crumbled at the box office , earning not much more money, which allowed him to write down one of the biggest failures in the history of cinema.

However, a decade and a half later, you don’t remember such things and try to enjoy watching. Yes, it's still a larger-than-life-blockbuster that's just plain fun to watch from start to finish. Before us is the future: distant, gloomy and depressing. An apocalypse has once again happened on Earth: the polar ice has melted, turning our Earth into a large and unified ocean. Only a handful of people survived, who learned to live in the new water world. Among them is a lonely wanderer, about whom practically nothing is known: no one even knows his name, and therefore "death cannot find him.".

"Water World" is to some extent a remake of the immortal classic of the post-apocalyptic genre - "Road Warrior". In the picture of George Miller, the world has turned into a huge desert, and society has degraded to unthinkable limits. In the Kevin Reynolds film, the same thing happened, only instead of a sandy desert, water. There was a cooler than cool silent protagonist, driving around in the most sophisticated vehicle of the new world. There is a cooler than cool silent protagonist with the most fancy boat even by the standards of the modern world. Both Max and the Sailor were helping a peculiar group of hippies trying to build a new world, protecting them from a gang of thugs who value the unprecedented luxury item - gasoline / oil above all else. However, in the "Water World" the main character is still more advanced: if you live in a water world, then what could be cooler than a person with gills (forget about the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution required for such a fact) and able to breathe underwater , which allows him to extract one of the most valuable resources - land?

"Water World" fits all the parameters of a blockbuster from the nineties: big, large-scale, noisy, senseless and merciless. But the film, which was not accepted in its time, has not lost its entertainment at all. It's still full of memorable scenes, from the jaw-dropping introduction of the protagonist and his boat to the chilling shots of the former Denver; from the most luxuriously executed and filmed attack on the atoll to a downhole ambush at oil traders; from the immortal "Adios, brothers" to the no less canonical "She is my friend"; from caricatured villains and characters to Dennis Hopper enjoying every second of his image...

Verdict: Absolutely undeservedly forgotten blockbuster.