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Waterworld

Waterworld

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ~~Waterworld~~
Review: Waterworld in my opinion, is an excellent movie. The acting is very well done, and I think that Kevin Costner was an exceptionally good choice for the lead role.
It has very interesting elements included in the story. For example it has a sense of originality, but added are touches of creativity. The story is also appealing for many different reasons.

The brief summary is that the world that we know has been flooded with water. Global warming has finally come, with the melting of the polar ice caps, and the bodies of water across the globe have risen above all civilization.There is only vast miles of ocean in sight. The disinegrating buildings, cars, and skyscrapers are drowned deep beneath the expanding seas...

You would have to watch the movie to see what else happens with the characters of the story, but I will assure you that it is suspenseful and entertaining.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not As Bad As You May Have Heard
Review: In "Waterworld" Kevin Costner stars as Mariner, a gill-equipped loner living in a post-apocalyptic world. In this future the polar ice caps have melted and made Earth a giant ocean. Mariner has an advantage over most others in that he can breathe under water.

It's unclear exactly what Mariner is up to. He doesn't have an identifiable purpose when we meet him. He just seems to be hanging out trying to survive.

Mariner takes under his protection a woman named Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her daughter Enola (Tina Majorino). A group of bad guys known as the Smokers are after the young girl because they believe she's the key to finding dry land. The Smokers are led by Deacon (Dennis Hopper), a comic-bookesque villain with a patch on one eye and a maniacal laugh to boot.

"Waterworld" is often an entertaining film with several lapses. One serious problem with this movie is Hopper's over-the-top performance. I found myself wanting to laugh at him more than dread him. I had no fear that Mariner wouldn't beat Deacon because Deacon was an idiot.

Another issue I have with the movie is its length. Long movies aren't necessarily bad, they just need to be able to fill in the time. "Waterworld", at about 140 minutes long, does not do a good job of filling in this time. The movie would have had better pace by lopping off about 15 to 25 minutes. This is not the type of movie that does well with long periods of inaction and quiet contemplation. This is not a dialogue movie, but an action one.

I will give Costner credit for taking chances like "Waterworld" when he could safely hide behind his star status and pluck out easy, big money roles. "Waterworld" may have done more damage to Costner's career than any other movies he's done to date. However, I don't think it quite deserves the amount of ridicule that gets heeped upon it. Had this movie not starred such an easy target as Costner, it would not have gotten the bad press that it did.

I would recommend "Waterworld" to those people who like the post-apocalyptic genre. It's not in the ranks of the Mad Max movies; but, it'll do for a couple hours of entertainment.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: many missing pieces.......
Review: Yes indeed, much left to be desired. Costner's film,
Waterworld, holds a permanent address in my "reference"
section of viddy's because of a number of unexplained
scenes in the VHS release.
The Mariner's trimaran in paticular. Not far along we
find the three smokers in the idling ski-do's waiting
to nab the goodie bag floating nearby when one stands up
and sez: " that's Joey's boat! " Great... who is Joey?
What an amazing set-up for a single seafaring defiant of
the depths. A little heavy handed with Helen and Enola,
the Mariner seems to be truly hiding some dark secrets.
The Deacon's lines are a nice breakup of the ongoing
choppy film plot. I'm certain the sceenplay was
influenced by a book about water covering the globe and
if anyone is aware of this connection, please advise
casamarcos @ juno.com. And don't forget to don your
lifejackets!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great movie worth watching! Take the plunge
Review: This is a really good movie. I'm not the biggest fan of sci-fi movies, but this movie rocked my waterworld. There's loveable characters, a good storyline. It's suspenseful, and spiced with action and heroics, fun for everyone. The towns, and ships and scenery thats not composed of water are well put together, and the costumes are really neat. You'll find yourself wanting an explanation for where all the metals and materials came from in a world swallowed by water and you'll feel like you're on the boats with the people in a desperate search for the myth of dry-land.

It's just a different kind of movie all together, but its fun to watch all the way. If you feel you've watched all the best movies out, but haven't seen this one yet, i reccomend trying it, its worth the two hours and nineteen minutes it takes to watch it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mad Max On H2O
Review: WATERWORLD was released in the mid-nineties to great suspicion in the world-wide press: "What? A motion picture cost $200 million to make?"

While the flick certainly doesn't look like a $200 million film on the screen, WATERWORLD delivers precisely what it promised: a loner meets girl, girl falls in love, loner performs some heroics, and girl stays on dry land because the loner can't stand the feeling of solid earth under his webbed feet.

It's popcorn film time, people. Don't take anything in WATERWORLD seriously, and you'll have a whale of a time!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Where's the Director's Cut???
Review: Many of you are probably saying, "Huh, wha, Director's Cut?" Yes, there is more footage and so where is it? The additional footage I speak of was shown on a network TV broadcast of this film back in '97 or '98 I believe. And in my opinion, it made the film much better by fleshing out some of the characters and some of the plot lines. I remember one scene where Dennis Hopper's character was interrogating the 2 or 3 Smokers who had let Costner get away after attacking the Atoll. This scene was not only funny, but it also helped develop some minor characters as well.

But as for the movie as a whole, I enjoyed the concept albeit somewhat unrealistic as some other reviewer has pointed out that the melting of the ice caps would have only raised the ocean levels a couple hundred feet, so anything that was mountainous in any way would have been above water, let alone even higher elevations of plains such as the Central Great Plains of the US as their elevations are several thousand feet in elevation. Denver is a mile high and it's more or less on a plain. But anyway, unrealistic ideas aside, the post-apocalypic world is always an interesting one every since the Mad Max movies.

Actually I think the only really thing that made this movie a box office bomb was because of Costner's bland acting and just the fact that HE was in it! Had it been another actor, hell even Ray Liota, (ie No Escape) the movie would have done better. But other than that, if you like post-apocalypic movies, then Waterworld is a good one to check out. Just try to overlook the unrealistic ice cap thing and enjoy the film for what it is, a post-apocalyptic action movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Waterworld
Review: Let me start with this; I liked WATERWORLD. Lots of action, special effects and a story with a good premise. Did not deserve the bad press that it received. I don't have to explain anything because all the previous favorable reviews have already stated it all. I just wanted to add my two cents. Do yourself a favor and watch it many times.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Very entertaining, but worth it?
Review: I will answer some of the technicalities raised by previous reviewers at the end, please bear with me :-)

It is too bad that "Waterworld" became the butt of jokes upon its release. Its budget (a record high at the time) and the resulting buzz created unattainable expectations for what is a pure action film, and a pretty good one at that.

The money spent on the battle scenes and special effects was put to good use as they were well-executed. Flooding the Earth used in the Universal logo at the movie's beginning was a slick segue.

The characters ran the usual gamut from engaging (such as Dennis Hopper's Deacon-of-the-Deeds) to the bland (as in Jeanne Tripplehor's Helen). Can Kevin Costner play anything but an emotionless drifter? I will give the benefit to the possibility that such wet conditions would wash the emotion out of anybody, though.

Action flick plots are never too deep (no pun intended), and this one is no exception. It does, however have enough turns and bends to keep things interesting, although it can drag slightly at times. One neat things is that the Smokers (the Deacon's gang) are never shown to actually be on the remains of the Exxon Valdez supertanker until the last battle scene.

Yes, there are many technical errors, some gross (see below). Hey Helen, do you really know what plexiglass is? Also, apparantly this film is set a few CENTURIES in the future, how can any of our current stuff (especially the metallic stuff), survive that long in corrosive salt air? The list goes on and on.

Overall, an entertaining film that couldn't live up to it's budgeted billing. Too bad, but not entirely undeserved.

*****

Now for the technicalities and SWE (script writer engineering):

- If the polar icecaps completely melted, they would raise the sea level by 500' at most. The beginning of the film shows Alaska being completely submerged by the ocean. That would require covering Mt. McKinley at 20320'.

- If it became warm enough to melt the icecaps, the snow on Mt. Everest would be gone, too, turning it into a tropical zone.

- Speaking of Hawaii (which is where I believe the "Everest" scenes were shot), the highest point, Mauna Kea, is over 13000' high, and yes, it does snow there!

- I can't resist taking a shot at this piece of SWE: Interesting that the Mariner and Helen dive down to the "lost" city of Denver (that one was easy to figure out). By my calculations, they would have to descend 3 MILES down to find it. That's 4000' deeper than the Titanic wreck, and real-world divers have to use massive submersibles to reach that depth. Helen's plastic bubble shreds the laws of pressure!

Any others?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fun movie full of poetic license
Review: Imagine the entire world covered with water, save for a small area called "dry land" by the handfull of survivors, a patch of land that none of the survivors have ever seen. So the basic plot of the movie is the search for this mythical "dry land".

Where does the poetic license come in? Most of it is in the form of the bad guys, called "smokers", led by Dennis Hopper. The "smokers" get their name because they smoke cigarettes. So...where does the tobacco come from? Naturally there is no explanation, plausable or otherwise. The "smokers" ride the waves on (of all things) jet skis! Where do they get their gasoline? Hmmm, well, obviously not at the local gas station, which is now several hundred feet below the surface. In one of the early attack scenes the "smokers" have what appears to be a twin .50 caliber armor piercing machine guns. Any guesses as to where the amunition comes from? Didn't think so. Later in the movie the "smokers" are seen flying a Piper Cub or some such small aircraft. The world's only Air Force, flying on the same mythical fuel that powers the jet skis. Finally we learn that the "smokers" live on (ready for this?) the Exxon Valdez!! And of course Capt. Joe Hazlewood is the patron saint of the "smokers". Whoever thought that one up must surely be a top executive by now.

There are others things that just don't make any sense in a world covered by water, they are rather easy to spot. But don't let my sarcasm about the smokers fool you. In SPITE of all of these things, "Waterworld" is an entertaining movie that is fun to watch.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: In Response to the Mt Everest Comment
Review: This is a great movie and the land described in another review on this site is indeed Mt Everest.

There was a special edition with additional scenes shown on NBC a while back and at the end of the film they find the plaque that was placed there when Everett was first climbed. If the ice caps melt then that would no longer be 29000 ft so therefore it would not be frozen.

Great movie with some of the best action scenes ever filmed. Costner is great also, everyone loved his acting until his movies started to tank.


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