Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I attempted to watch this movie, got about 25 minutes into it. I did think to myself it was filmed similarly to Mad Max (I saw someone else say that on a review). Anyway, it is not the worst movie ever but it was just not good. The acting was so cheesy! The costumes were cheesy. And I just could not watch anymore of it after only 25 minutes! I am a Kevin Costner fan usually, but not this time.

While not quite as bad as the critics would have you believe, this bloated blockbuster is still pretty awful. Enjoyable on a "switch off the brain" level, it lacks any real depth or intelligence to raise it above the ranks of other blockbuster fare. This is probably down to the troubled production and spiralling budget which plagued the film, and taught the producers that it was a bad idea to shoot the entire thing on water.Indeed most of the budget has gone into simple location shooting, and there are no fancy special effects here. While there are a lot of stunts and gigantic explosions, these lack realism. One good moment comes where a CGI monster jumps out of the waves to eat Costner, and this works because it's brief. Otherwise it's the same old story. Plotwise, this is just a variant on the MAD MAX films, with a lone rebel fighting off a gang of bad guys in a post-apocalyptic world.The dress sense is also stolen from the above films, as are most of the ideas. The acting from Kevin Costner in particular is pretty good, he plays an unlikeable, unsympathetic character here which makes a change from the norm. Dennis Hopper relishes the chance to go over the top once again as the lead bad guy, although he never poses a real threat to our hero. There is a funny scene involving Hopper and a false eyeball which is worth looking out for. The rest of the cast are pretty bad, although Jeanne Tripplehorn comes out with her dignity in the female lead. Zakes Mokae is wasted in a tiny blink-and-you'll-miss it cameo.The action sequences are ruined due to the film's child-friendly rating. Just when it looks like something nice and violent is going to happen the film cuts away. It's fairly brutal for a kid's film but still disappointing for an adult. A glossy sheen tries to hide the lack of substance here, but fails. In the end, WATERWORLD is just another big-budget rip-off which shouldn't have been made in the first place.

(I don't really think that I spoiler anything, but I just wanted to make sure)I love apocalyptic movies - I really do. It is the extreme contrast to our current reality which makes them so interesting. So this was a plus on watching "Waterworld".I've watched Waterworld for the first time about 10 years ago and whenever I think back I have a good feeling about the movie. That's why I watched it again in 2016. And boy - it didn't disappoint. The story as an apocalyptic movie is great, but the atmosphere is exceptional well done and gripping.As for the acting goes - I'm not really an expert in it even though I've watched a lot of movies in my 23 years - but I had the feeling that it was superb.But what I really liked about Waterworld is the connection between Mariner (Kevin Costner) and the little kid. Mariner who became very coldhearted, egoistic and skeptical to other humans through his ruff time on the water for many years, learns to trust and even developed feelings/emotion for other human-beings through his interaction with the little girl. He is the typical "hard shell,soft core"-man.Last but not least - "older" movies - around 1985-2005 (Lethal Weapons, Rush Hour etc etc) have this realistic feeling/vibe which I really miss on current blockbusters. They all look too much enhanced through CGI.

Waterworld is not an adaptation from a book. That right there is proof for research and creativity ! The first script draft was ten years ago but Costner re-wrote it. Waterworld might be the most under appreciated movie of all time, and is a very important contribution to sci- fi, for the amazing decor and infrastructures, the phenomenal music, the number of people hired to play in it... No other movie has bothered to tackle the same subject, because even with CGIs it requires a lot of effort and work, something Costner did. I don't think people understand how brilliant Costner matches this role so perfectly, which is very hard; If you don't get it, then you just don't get acting. This is not Rocky Balboa 'brrrruubbrrruruhuhughg lightheaded" acting, it took Costner a lot of effort and energy to play a masked cold angered mariner and does a few stunts at age 40 (he had a stuntman surfer doing the others). The Media of course, deliberately trashed this movie for recreation instead of praising the fact that it's incredibly ahead of its time think about it, no one had ever come up with that concept before, but Costner did. And then there's the issue of forums: what we call the trolls, those who tag along and criticize just to criticize. The Media demonstrated its immaturity and autoproclaimed right to unfairly bash without taking any responsibilities. Costner was scandalously trashed by the press coalition that destroyed his marriage, they slandered, insinuating he had an affair, they kept reporting it in the tabloids headlines, reporting there were multiple incidents on set (most of it because of natural hazards that sunk a set and stuck Costner up on the sail), just because Universal didn't pay them to go watch the movie. They even said Costner's hair line was CGI effects ! And of course a ton of people hopped on the bandwagon. The story itself is great, a future covered by water and only one hope remains that a dry land still floats. One girl shipped into a basket wears markings that are coordinates to dryland. Her guardian Helen and an inventor protect her from the Smokers who have heard about her tattoo thanks to a leak (the Nord spy). Along comes the Mariner who can swim under the very bottom of the ocean, to pick up dirt and trade it on atolls but he is captured by the habitants labeled as a threat and a spy. The Mariner is released from his cage by Helen and the three take off on his trimaran in the middle of the Smoker attack, but the Smokers are determined to run him down and recover the girl. The Mariner then realizes the girl's markings are key indications but only he knows that the world has sunk and been covered up by water. They are ambushed by the Smokers who blow up his boat and kidnap the girl. The Mariner and Helen survive thanks to Grigor who spotted them up from his gas balloon but the Mariner refuses to run after the Smokers and decides to return to his destructed boat to recover the few objects left and sees drawings of dry land that match his national-geographic magazines and understands she is indeed a native of dry land. The final showdown takes set on the Deacon's boat that is overrun by the Mariner and leaves in the company of Helen, Grigor and the sheriff of the atoll on their way to dry land that Grigor has finally figured out the coordinates.I understand that at the time people were bothered by questions and I will urge them to go watch the complete version for three hours, it's out there on DVD and internet, and I guarantee you will get the answers and enjoy the complete version. It makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE. It's pivotal for the development of the story and characters, especially the Mariner. You look at Costner's performance in Field of dreams, Bull Durham, Dances with Wolves and Waterworld, not one of them are similar but Waterworld definitively reaches another level. The cast around him is very good, there are mostly very good characters, Hopper is hysterical but criticized because he's not "cruel" enough and looks more like a prankster. Maybe heiq, but he blows up an entire atoll and the Mariner's boat so I think that's good proof he is cruel. The negative would be the CGI - it is true that if you know the basics of CGI, you can spot the anomalies - the explosions that are offsync, the leviathan that swallows up Costner, when Costner has his boots off and his bare foot and back to wearing boots several times.... those are the regular anomalies that make this wonderful production unprofessional. Laziness ? Perhaps. But it was 1995. It would be a shame if Waterworld is not played again on TV in the full extended cut because the fans and the younger generations or even those who never saw it at the time, would discover a fantastic movie. If you have good taste, you can only enjoy this wonderful ride that leads you all the way to dryland.