Waterworld

In the distant future, the world will be covered with water after the ice caps melt and humans will live in a Mad Max Apocalyptic style world, but based on the ocean.
When a young girl appears in the company of a surrogate mother, it's learned that she has a map tattooed on her back. It is said that the map gives directions to a mythical place, unseen by human eye for centuries... a place called Dryland.

When a particular group of pirates called 'Smokers' hear of this map, they make it their mission to capture the child, but while escaping from the attack the child and her surrogate mother end up in the hands of a mysterious sailor known only as The Mariner.
Together they must protect the girl and the map (of course, if it is real), and help a bunch of stranded survivors to avoid the Smokers, and see if this apparent myth known as Dryland actually exists.


Still regarded today as the biggest box office failure of all time, Waterworld is actually a very clever movie, filled with imagination and a rather broad range of acting.

The overall feel of the movie is along the lines of Mad Max, but without the darker more brooding subject matters... instead, Waterworld swaps the darker stuff for more fantastical, even comicbook style adventure and action.

Though at the time, 1995, it cost near $240m to make... in today's money that's near $350m which actually outweighs today's movie budgets by $50m... Waterworld still manages to have a B-Movie feel to it.

The overall world built for and around the movie is still very imaginative though. There are numerous ideas throughout and characters and races of people that were going to be built on by the filmmakers, sadly though, in-fighting between cast, crew and studios cut short a lot of the production... leaving the finished product feeling slightly void of any real history or quantity.
There is an element of history there, just not as much as there could have been.

The film does utilise humour though, and does it in a very, very subtle way. Some of it is in jokes too that mainly sailors will spot but there's a number of scenes of odd-trio/buddy-movie comedy that shines through between the main trio of actors.


The main problem with the movie is, and this might sound a bit odd, is the imaginative premise: A water world.
The major plot hole is why Dryland is still mythical after centuries and centuries of people floating around on the ocean.
It doesn't quite work in the grande scheme of things.


The acting though is really good for a movie of its type.
Kevin Costner as The Mariner is brilliantly quiet and grumpy. He's also incredibly tough and carries the burden of secrecy perfectly. There's more to Costner than meets the eye, not just in the character, but in the actor too.
Tina Majorino is also on top form as the tattoed girl Enola. Majorino is extremely annoying to Costner's tough Mariner, eventually finding a common ground with him and becoming stalwart buddies.
Jeanne Tripplehorn does an apt job as Enola's surrogate mother, she has an air of toughness and wisdom about her and plays the more motherly and softer scenes perfectly.

The standout role though is Dennis Hopper as The Deacon, the leader of the Smokers. He's very good in the role. Think along the lines of a cross between his role in Land Of The Dead with touches of Frank Booth and King Koopa in Super Mario Bros. and you're getting close. He's also the main actor to give the hits of humour involved throughout the movie.


Now... the action. It's highly charged, contains masses of explosive adventure and the humour involved, though as I said mainly comes from Hopper, lifts the action to greater levels of enjoyment.
Backing up the choreography is some really well rendered and pieced together special effects, and it's mainly practical with only the odd matt-painting and miniature work. Pretty much the whole film is on the ocean too and the technical aspects of this are exceptionally well put together.