WATERWORLD

STARRING: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Michael Jeter, Gerard Murphy, R.D. Call

1995, 135 Minutes, Directed by: Kevin Reynolds

I will try to refrain from any "watery grave" metaphors in this review, but it will not be easy since this movie is a rather fishy affair. Er, sorry.

Anyway, Waterworld starts off promisingly enough in a scene in which Kevin Costner (as a mutant called the Mariner - bit of a cold fish, oops!) recycles his own urine to drink again. This is the stuff science fiction is made of: the minutiae detail of everyday life in the future. How would people survive in a planet completely submerged under water after the polar caps have melted? What would they eat (except for fish, of course)? Where would they find the necessary materials to build their ships? What would they drink (or will they all die of too much salt water)?

Alas, few of these questions are answered as Waterworld progresses. Instead the movie prefers to be little else than Mad Max on water.

Ultimately one is left with a bitter taste in the mouth: how could this much money (Hollywood rumour has it that it boasts one of the most inflated budgets ever) have been pumped into a project that began life as a B-grade Roger Corman exploitation pic? Why not have spent the money on more original material? Or film a well-known and original sci-fi novel instead? There is something rotten in the state of Hollywood . . .

(The effects are spectacular and what one would expect from any Hollywood big budget production?)