- Directed by Kevin Reynolds
- Written by Peter Rader and David Twohy
- Starring
- Kevin Costner
- Dennis Hopper
- Jeanne Tripplehorn
- Tina Majorino
- Michael Jeter
- Produced by Charles Gordon, John Davis, and Kevin Costner
This is it, folks — the most expensive movie ever reviewed on this website.
It also is a good poster child for the failure of the Dollars-to-Entertainment ratio, the main reason I don’t bother to see a lot of theatrical releases these days. Call me crazy, but I think that one should reasonably a movie made for $200 million to have a greater entertainment value than one made for a tenth of that. Not ten times as much, naturally, because of the screwy nature of economies of scale in Hollywood (the difference between $10 million and $20 million somehow being more visible than the differene between $100 million and $200 million); but I still think there’s something wrong when money goes in one side of a production, but doesn’t come out as entertainment value on the other side.
In other words, it isn’t that Waterworld is a terrible, horrible movie; it’s simply no better than similar movies made for a tenth, a twentieth, or even a two-hundredth of its budget.
“No, I DON’T care if they’re fruit or vegetables.”
And the biggest overall problem tendency that keeps it from living up to its budget exhibits itself right from the very first — in the opening credits. The Universal Pictures globe appears, and we then pull in on it as the continents slowly sink into the oceans, leaving us with… a waterworld. We can all admit that that’s pretty neat. It’s immediately followed up with the movie’s single line of narration:
“The future. The polar icecaps have melted, covering the earth with water. Those who survived have adapted to a new world.”
Which is pretty damned obvious. I mean, we saw the icecaps melt. And it’s unlikely that any yayhoo wandered into the movie theater without knowing that, yup, this is a movie about a future in which the world is covered with water. Even if a viewer were to go into the movie completely ignorant, within ten minutes he’d know all he needs to about Waterworld, like the fact that “dry land” is a Shangri-La to these people.
But we have the narration anyway, because somebody behind the scenes was worried that they’d made a movie that was too smart. And that’s the undercurrent of the entire picture: It’s deathly afraid of being too smart.
(Seven paragraphs, and we haven’t even gotten through the opening credits. Better pick up the pace, Shumate, or the polar icecaps will melt before the review is done.)
“Please! Don’t take our tooth-whitening gel!”
All right. Our main character is only called “the Mariner,” a reclusive and antisocial traveler/trader played by Kevin Costner. And there’s our second major flaw. Elsewhere, I’ve called Kevin Costner “charisma-free.” That’s not entirely true; he’s got a kind of homespun charm, an unassuming Everyman quality that served him well in Field of Dreams and Dances With Wolves. He doesn’t play to the back row; someone I once knew described his style as “living-room acting.” (Which is why he sucks at larger-than-life roles like Robin Hood.) But the problem is, no matter what role he’s playing, he’s always playing Kevin Costner. And the Kevin Costner that we all know and (cough) love simply isn’t believable as an antisocial loner. He’s just too nice a guy. When it’s revealed that he has a heart of gold, the only reaction the audience can have is, “Duh! Of COURSE he does — he’s Kevin Costner!”
What? Oh, right — plot summary and all that. Okay. The Mariner, in his souped-up MacGyver boat, floats into a manmade atoll for a little bit of trading. As bad luck would have it, he raises the suspicions of the locals by refusing their offer to impregnate one of their daughters and diversify their gene pool a bit. Could he be — gay?! Nope, they don’t even think of that; they leap right to the “web-toed, gill-breathing mutation” assumption, which proves to be true. (Not exactly a ready-for-prime-time mutation, though; despite all of his aquatic adaptations, he still has to drink fresh water, even if that means recycling his own urine. I’d call that a helluva evolutionary blind spot.)
His rescue from execution and “recycling” (he’d make some tasty Soylent Green, I tell you) comes when the atoll is under attack by the forces of the evil and psychotic Deacon (Dennis Hopper — again, at his best when he’s playing those “Dennis Hopper” roles), who, just like his compatriots in drier post-apocalyptic movies, has a supply of gasoline and bullets in a post-industrial world, while the good guys use wind- and wave-power. The Deacon’s forces are after Enola (Tina Majorino), the orphaned Human McGuffin; she has a mysterious tattoo on her back that some say is the coded map to the fabled “Dry Land.” During the attack, her self-appointed adoptive mother, Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) makes a deal with the Mariner: If she springs him from his cage, he’ll take the two of them on his boat.
“Don’t mind me, I just went to the optometrist today.”
The action scene here, while unremarkable, is still well done; there’s some well-coordinated mayhem, creative tactics, and some full-scale destruction that most post-apocalyptic movies can’t afford; all of this is salted with Kevin Costner’s water double swimming like a dolphin to free his boat. (A dolphin that drinks its own pee, granted.) He gets the two of them away right under the very nose of the Deacon…
And then the movies spirals downward like somebody pulled the plug.
Because, you see, we can’t do smart things. Or subtle things. No, we have to go with the big, trite, overused themes and subplots to hedge our bets against the spectre of intelligence. So we have scene after scene of the Mariner being irritated and angry with Helen and Enola, and with good reason; they slow him down, they get in his way, and they haven’t got the sense God gave a corkscrew. Enola can’t even swim, for crying out loud. She lives on a boat, remember. So the Mariner teaches her in about twenty minutes, once he’s warmed up to her.
Because of course he warms up to her. This is a Hollywood movie, remember? And according to Hollywood, every gruff and antisocial man is just waiting for the right annoying-but-cute urchin to come along and unlock his heart so that he can appreciate sunsets and Crayola-decorated keels and such. (I’m wondering how those Hollywood execs would deal with being saddled with an infuriating yet lovable juvenile of their own.) The only thing that makes this creaky cliche even remotely believable is that, as mentioned, Kevin Costner just can’t believably portray a hardened and dangerous loner; the transition to surrogate father figure isn’t as much of a leap.
Note from producer: “I don’t know if this is blatant enough. Could we maybe have cartoon hearts radiating from the picture?”
Now, just to show you how it’s supposed to be done, take a look at The Road Warrior. (Might as well; the makers of Waterworld obviously did, and inserted so many “homages” that it looks like they were almost daring reviewers to point out the correspondences, right down to the “meaningful” musicbox.) There, too antisocial loner Max encounters a child. But there, the child isn’t a hindrance and a McGuffin; the kid actually helps. And Max isn’t inevitably won over by the little munchkin’s impossible cuteness; Max is drawn to this frankly feral child from the first, because the child is the one person who doesn’t want something from him. And relating to the child brings Max to some unspoken realizations about the future of the kind of lifestyle he’s chosen. All of this is subtle, naturally, and doesn’t intrude on the viewing of anyone who just wants a rip-roaring adventure flick. Compare that to Waterworld‘s front-and-center approach: “See? He just wants to be loved! And all that’ll take to open him up is the petty annoyance of a preteen girl!” And thanks to focusing on the vapid and trite “relationship” story, the pacing of the movie slows to a tidal crawl. (Word is that Costner and the other producers removed forty minutes of footage from the theatrical release, over director Reynolds’ objections — and most of it is from the final third of the movie, where I aleady swore time was moving backwards.)
Eventually, yadda yadda yadda, Deacon attacks repeatedly to get the girl, yadda yadda yadda, the Mariner takes Helen down to the bottom of the ocean in a homemade bathysphere to show here where the only “dry land” he knows is, yadda yadda yadda, the Mariner has to rescue Enola off the huge oil tanker that’s the Deacon’s own floating redneck frat party, yadda yadda yadda, a whole bunch of stuff blows up. And we still drag on to a slow climax and a final scene, again, fraught with echoes of The Road Warrior (which took it from John Ford’s The Searchers), but with the “Maudlin” knob cranked all the way to eleven.
Well, at least they blow things up good.
And now, back to that pedantic Dollars-to-Entertainment idea. Because, despite $200 million, it just doesn’t show on screen. Yes, a lot of stuff looks very pretty, and some of the bigger set pieces would be entirely out of budgetary range of most post-apocalyptic movies. But the largest part of it went to the behind-the-scenes logistics of shooting on the open water, trying (not 100% successfully) to keep land out of the picture. And that’s where it’s the most galling; even if I don’t get $200 million of entertainment out of the movie, I’d sure like to see $200 million of movie on the screen. If not, I’d much rather have that money go to ten $20 million movies, giving me better odds of getting my entertainment dollar back from at least one.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 63, and then the oil tanker blew up and I lost all count
- breasts: 0 (buttocks, yes; breasts, no)
- explosions: 9
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 4
- Jack Kehler (The atoll’s banker) played “Jaheel” in the DS9 episode “Babel”
- Robert Joy (the “Ledger guy”) played “Inspector Yerid” in the Voyager episode “Workforce: Part 2″
- John Fleck (“Doctor”) played “Taibak” in the TNG episode “The Mind’s Eye,” “Ornithar” in the DS9 episode “The Search, Part 1,” “Koval” in the DS9 episode “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges,” and “Abaddon” in the Voyager episode “Alice,” and currently has a recurring role as “Silik” on Enterprise
- Sean Whalen (“Bone”) played “Zaumas” in the Enterprise episode “Canamar”
- Lee Arenberg (“Djeng”) played “Gral” in the DS9 episode “The Nagus (aka Friends and Foes),” “DaiMon Prak” in the TNG episode “Force of Nature,” “DaiMon Bok” in the TNG episode “Bloodlines,” and “Pelk” in the Voyager episode “Juggernaut”
