Waterworld

Rating:
Summary: Lighten up...it's a movie
Review: I have heard so many people trash this movie. I went in with no pre-conceived notions of what it was about and LOVED it. It's a movie people. So many take movies too seriously. It's drama, it's funny, it's action packed, it's what movies are supposed to be. And, there are little subtle humorous things like the fact that Dennis Hopper's idol is the former captain of the ship he's on...The Exxon Valdez!! That's funny. I agree with one of the other reviewers. I also saw the extended version on Network TV and am anxiously waiting for it to come out on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Better than it's given credit for
Review: Waterworld drowned in its own negative pre-release hype, which I along with pretty much everyone else bought into at the time (a similar set of circumstances rightfully crushed Gigli, which is so much worse than this film as to be in its own category). Upon age and reflection, Waterworld stands on its own as a coherent, enjoyable apocalypse film. It simply doesn't look like something that $200+ million was spent on (much of which went into rebuilding set pieces after a storm, so it had no effect on the look of the film). If you can get past whatever expectation that budget might have placed for you in terms of shiny effects, this is a pretty darn good movie. Costner is believable and entertaining as the Mariner, and the supporting cast does a good job. Hopper has fun chewing the scenery as the Deacon, leader of a huge pack of scavengers called Smokers due to the fact their vehicles and industry run off crude oil carried in their massive mobile oil tanker home.
Most people bash Waterworld because of either its huge price tag, which didn't "deliver," or because they feel it is simply a rehash of Road Warrior but on the ocean. I believe there are strong counterarguments to both these claims. I love Road Warrior, but I hardly believe it invented the genre; there were films coming out 25 years earlier that had the same theme. An apocalypse film is usually the only way to posit an alternative reality movie without having to bloat up on futuristic robots and/or aliens (the other possibility is a caveman film, which we all know will be a resounding success). Costner's film parallels Road Warrior really only to the extent both involve a lone warrior in a savage post-apocalyptic world, which is how every single other film in the genre is also set up. It basically IS the genre.

Waterworld takes its place in that genre quite adeptly. It has plenty of interesting but disposable side villians, neat gadgets and surprises, a cynical central adventurer with lots of deadly skills, and surprisingly good dialogue. Heck even the annoying child actor gets thrown overboard when she becomes too annoying. If only The Phantom Menace writers were taking notes. Likewise, the action in this film proves satisfying, as it is CGI free.

Waterworld was a failure at the time, but it has aged well and deserves another look. It's not as good as Road Warrior, no, but what is? I'd take a screening of Waterworld over most of the recent "summer" action films (Hulk, Daredevil, S.W.A.T. etc) of this past summer any day of the week.

Rating:
Summary: The Amazon review is wrong....
Review: This movie really is as terrible as the reviews and it's poor box office performance shows. It showcased Costner's weak acting and direction skills. The movie had no script, no good performances, and lousy editing/production design, and music score. Universal should destroy all copies of this film.

Rating:
Summary: An Imitation Drowning In Its Own Action
Review: Kevin Costner's multi-million dollar rip-off of the "Road Warrior." Pretty much the same plot and theme except on water as opposed to desert. Kevin Costner plays a fish-human hybrid wandering in a world now covered with water. He runs into Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and a young girl (Tina Majorino)but soon realizes they bring trouble with the Smokers, a band of cigarette-smoking pirates led by The Deacon (Dennis Hopper.) Grudgingly protecting the innocent peoples from the Smokers, Costner then seeks to lead them to a solid ground paradise.

The movie's credit goes to the stunt personnel who did all the show. In terms of solid lines and performances there are none except for Dennis Hopper. The story itself reeks of pseudo science and shows the writer's obvious lack of basic georgraphical knowledge. Even if the polar caps had completely melted, it is impossible for that amount of water to rise over 30,000 feet evenly across the entire world: sorry Mr. Costner,there just isn't that much ice in the polar caps and our water supply on this planet is a closed system. The movie is just another sad example of Costner's ever declining career as both an actor and director. I kept on wanting to fall asleep through the film but the explosions and senseless yelling kept me awake.

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT MOVIE!!
Review: One of the most criticized and underappreciated movies of the 90s. If you like apocoliptic thrillers then you will love this movie. It gets better every time you watch it.

Rating:
Summary: WE NEED THE EXTENDED VERSION RELEASED!!!
Review: Hi folks, i just love waterworld, but i love the longer three hour version MUCH MUCH BETTER! and so does everyone that has scene it! Now i think it is a crime that universal has not released the extended version on dvd yet!! ...

Rating:
Summary: Begging for Special Extended Edition DVD
Review: I just want to say that I loved this movie. Most of the other reviewers have given in depth synopsises, so I won't bore you with any of those details. I know there were some areas that dragged a bit, but most movies have that. I have to say that I am very surprised and extremely excited to hear there were longer versions shown on tv and cable. I really hope that Universal is actively pursuing making an extended special edition for this movie. If anyone needs it, it's this movie. I know there must be tons of behind the scenes footage, and I would love to see the building of the sets and maybe some of the problems they had with the weather. I, myself am a mariner, and love everything about being out on the water, and that's probably one of the reasons I love this movie so much. I don't really care whether the water would have covered all the earth or not, it's just part of the movie. I even don't mind Kevin Costner as the lead. I know he can be a little dry sometimes, but overall I think he is a good actor. I enjoy most of his films, and since the studios have released extended special editions of his other films: ie -"Dances With Wolves" and "Robin Hood", I really hope Universal is on the ball with this movie and they can't release it soon enough. I would really love to see the other 2-2.5 hours I have heard about.

Rating:
Summary: "Nothing's free in WATERWORLD."
Review: First and foremost, that quote above. I just couldn't help but notice the irony. How the film's hero specify's that "Nothing's free in WATERWORLD", and he couldn't be more right. WATERWORLD was, at the time of it's release, the most expensive movie ever made, at...near $200 million. That record was broken by TITANIC in 1997 (which had nearly TWICE that digit), but still, few movies have ever neared such a gloriusly expensive cost.

Now, to my real review. WATERWORLD takes place at some point in the fairly distant future. Global Warming has melted all the ice and snow in the world, covering it with water (hence, the title, WATERWORLD.) People now have crummy establishments known as "Atolls" to live on, as well as surviving boats. The Mariner (Kevin Costner) is a drifter who seems to be the flesh and blood embodiment of Aquaman, since he has webbed toes and gill slits behind his ears, affording him a significant advantage in the high seas.

The Mariner's adventures occur when he agrees to protect Helen (Jeann Tripplehorn) and her adoptive child Enola (Tina Majorino) from the "Smokers", pirates who, unlike everyone else in WATERWORLD, speed across the seas on gas-powered boats, are led by the infamous Deacon (Dennis Hopper, fresh out of the action-classic SPEED), and who want Enola for the tattoo on her back.

And, oh, this is no ordinary tattoo. It is supposed to be a map to the mythical "Dryland", and the Smokers would do anything to rule it.

And off the plot goes. It's full of action, and alot of sticks-to-you-like-glue-images, particularly in the scene where the Mariner takes Helen on a trip benath the sea to see the ruins of the "ancient" world. The particular city the see is, of course, Denver. And the filmmakers must've felt compelled to stuff the movie with as much action as possible. The Mariner rather quickly is involved in a fight with the inhabitants of an Atoll when they discover his gills.

There's plenty of CGI visual effects work to give the movie the perfect look of the post-apocolytice future. In one of the action scenes, the Mariner shoots some kind of cannon on his boat that launches a very cool looking kite into the sky to make his boat go even faster.

The Mariner's boat, by the way, has to be one of the most elaborate movie sets I've ever seen. It has outrigger fittings to keep it from tipping over (now that's a good idea), a cool wind chime to get the boat still while not sailing, which can then be converted into a massive sail, and a net on either side that can double as a trampoline.

You may even find a dash of humor here and there in WATERWORLD. Some of it is intended, like in the scen where The MAriner offers Heln the eyeball of a giant fish, before eating it himslef, or when the Deacon has reconstructive surgery for his eye, which ends up looking "like s---." Then there's some unintended comedy, like in the scene at the Atoll where the Mariner is trapped in a cage while the Smokers are attacking, and Helen agrees to let the Mariner out only if he takes her and Enola with him.

Like he was really gonna say no, just to stay in that cage and die.

For people looking for post-apocalytic adventures, WATERWORLD is a perfect piece of non-stop fun, right in the ranks with the TERMINATOR epics, and even one or two MAD MAX's.

Rating:
Summary: Awsome movie,cool, Bad luck
Review: It seems odd to me that this movie didn't get top reviews. It deffinetly deserves it, and should fit next to Mad Max Road Warrior and Thunderdome on any sci fi fans shelf. The film makes up ten times over for some of the reported cheezey acting with some awsome full out ship battles, Gun Fights, effects, scenery, and very original photography, and neo pirate story line. To top this all off the Deacon (Dennis Hopper) is awsome and the Marrinor (Kevin Costner) is equily cool. Like I said this is a full out fx show and really can't be taken as Shakespear. The film dosn't deserve all the bad reviews it got and i think it should have gotten some sort of award for set and makeup design. A winner film with a losers reputation.

Rating:
Summary: Deep Ones and the Movies They Love
Review: Imagine an Earth where both the landscape and the cities dotting it have been swallowed by the seas, existing below a world of tides where only the Deep Ones of Lovecraftian fame could enjoy of those benefits, and where the tattered remains of humanity are forced to barter for simple things like fresh water and the gold dust know as dirt. Further envision Kevin Costner as something of an oddity with gills, webbed fingers, and the apparent ability to thwart and sort of reproductive urges when dealing with women, existing upon a diet of recycled "biological waste" and the fruit of a little tree he treats like a baby. Then think of what would happen if he, discovered as a mutant while bartering with a veritable Fort Knox of dirt and then plunged into the exploits of a woman and her child as he finds out she is supposedly the key to dry land, were asked to be a mentoring model in the life of two people that don't really know the mistress known as the sea and further - in the child's case - cannot swim. Yes, Father Dagon would be pleased.

Despite its balding plotline that seems to literally thin and stretch as the viewer watches, its plethora of bad acting and uninspiring performances, and the use of enemies that are known as the Smokers because they like to smoke, it still isn't as bad as people try and make it out to be. There are some pros in the storyline that someone can find, including: object lessons on humanity, trust, and the webbed fingers they ask to bail them out whenever things get too bad, special effects that are interesting in certain places where the world of water has claimed its fair share of a world it already owned a ruling stock in anyhow, a scene with some sort of monstrosity that lurks beneath the waves and almost feasts on our supposed hero as he find himself working out the chumming instincts in his genes, and that many and many an actor that I wanted to meet their fate below the waves in fact does. There are also portions that are touching in their own rights, especially those when Costner tosses this golden child into the water where I later find out monstrosities world and that he actually knew about them, thinks about trading his female companion for some tidbits that he seems to find shiny, and seems to love his boat more than is healthy for an individual.

The problem suffered by this movie is a little disease we call critics, though, that seem to think that Costner should be making Dances With Wolves with every stellar budget he decides to sink into a project. Fortunately, though, he doesn't and is allowed to play with ideas that are a little Sci-fi meets Seaworld, sharing with people something they could possibly enjoy if they took time to simply look with unfettered eyes.