Waterworld(Kevin Reynolds,Kevin Costner)1995

Production Budget: Anywhere from $175 million to $229 million

Worldwide Gross: $255 millionSubsequent earnings: $42 million

If there is one lesson to be learned from the making of Jaws it’s this; never make a movie on the ocean.  Spielberg had numerous problems with the open water.  He has stated many times that his decision to show the shark after an hour into the movie was only because he couldn’t get the damn thing to work.  Kevin Costner was on top of the world in the early 90’s with hit after hit (JFK, Field of Dreams, No Way Out, The Untouchables, Dances with Wolves, Bull Durham) and decided to produce a post-apocalyptic adventure. The movie was Mad Max on jet skis.  Cool huh?  Nah, not really.

The movie was an ordeal from day one.  Sure enough, the ocean proved devastating to the film.  They had to build the Atoll facility and the Exxon Valdez from scratch.  As if building a floating city and a tanker isn’t expensive enough, storms destroyed the sets and they had to build them again.  Costner has the reputation of being a loose cannon and having both him and Dennis Hopper on set at the same time eventually proved to be too much for Reynolds to handle.  Costner then took the director’s chair in an uncredited role.  The main complaints were that the script was weak.  Many writers were hired to punch up the script including Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) David Twohy (Pitch Black) and Joss Whedon (Serenity).  Whedon called the experience seven weeks of hell.  The plot was about the polar ice caps melting and forcing people to live on floating cities.  Our protagonist helps a young girl with a tattoo of a map to dry land from the evil smokers.  Rumors of it’s suckiness followed it to the release and the movie performed terrible at the box office.  At the time it was the most expensive movie ever made.  It fared better in the international market and the video sales have helped it out.  Waterworld won one Razzie (Worst Supporting: Dennis Hopper) and was nominated for three more (Worst Actor, Director, and Picture) Costner’s career since then has been up and down (mainly down) and he can’t really live down his two big failures Waterworld and The Postman.

Is it any good: Not really.  I mean, it’s probably not as horrible as people say.  I think most of it comes from the fact that it cost so much and all of the reports of the lousy conditions on-set.  But it’ still bad.  For as long as the movie is, the script is really weak.  Why should we really care?  Why does that girl have a tattoo to dry land?  Why is Costner a mutant?  The movie also has very cheesy performances from Hopper and the other supporting cast (the little girl is especially annoying).  The action scenes are alright, but on the whole, it’s weak.  Oh, and I could have gone my whole life without seeing Costner drink his own pee.

Re-visit

Now I’ve seen the original cut again for the purposes of this review.  I am aware there is a near three hour cut of the film roaming around but I seriously think two hours is more than enough.  It is kind of strange the turn Costner’s career took after this movie.  Even though he has starred in many movies since then; some of which I love (like Open Range).  However, his status as a draw was over and many see this as the ultimate embarrassment.  This is odd because the movie didn’t really bomb that badly upon its release and has actually garnered a good profit on DVD releases.  Yes, it is a campy movie but that is hardly rare for actors to avoid a piece of crap nowadays.   I don’t run into many people that remember the Postman but everyone remembers Waterworld.

Waterworld is a perfect example of a ‘so bad it’s good’ movie.  Everyone seems to be playing a game of who can overact the worst.  You have religious zealots who want to throw everyone in the holy recycling pit, you have people delirious from the sun stammering and jumping around, you have the leather clad smokers, and the granddaddy of them all Dennis Hopper.  You would think the man would slow down in his old age but it seems like he’s doing just as much drugs as his Apocalypse Now days.

But how else are you supposed to take this movie than with pure amusement.  You have Kevin Costner as a fish man who drinks his own pee, you have jet ski driving pirates, and you have people whoring themselves out for dirt and National Geographics for example. I know Joss Whedon and David Twohy must get shit for working on this, but I see them actually raising the camp value of the movie.  Pure speculation, but I just see them looking at the script as is and knowing there was no way to salvage it so they had to make it as goofball as possible.

I thought I would have a lot more to say about this movie but I would just be repeating myself.  I would be talking about stupid scene after stupid scene. Really if you like making fun of bad movies, you don’t get a much bigger spectacle than Waterworld.  And don’t miss out on Costner’s Oscar caliber delivery.

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My boat.