Waterworld
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| Waterworld | |
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| Directed by | Kevin Reynolds Kevin Costner (uncredited) |
| Produced by | Kevin Costner, John Davis, Charles Gordon, Lawrence Gordon, Andrew Licht |
| Written by | Peter Rader David Twohy |
| Starring | Kevin Costner Jeanne Tripplehorn Tina Majorino R.D. Call Dennis Hopper Zitto Kazann Leonardo Cimino Michael Jeter Zakes Mokae Luke Ka'ili Jr. Anthony DeMasters Willy Petrovic Jack Kehler Chaim Girafi Rick Aviles Jack Black Lanny Flaherty Robert A. Silverman Gerard Murphy |
| Editing by | Peter Boyle |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 28, 1995 |
| Running time | 136 Mins Theatrical 176 Mins Director's Cut |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $175 million |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Waterworld is a 1995 post-apocalyptic science fiction film. The film stars Kevin Costner who also produced it. Waterworld was released in the United States on July 28, 1995.
Problems encountered during filming led to massive budget overrun, and it held the dubious distinction of being the most expensive film ever made at the time. Some critics dubbed it "Fishtar" and "Kevin's Gate" (references to the notorious flops Ishtar and Heaven's Gate). However the movie actually made a more than a $100 million profit with worldwide sales. With a budget of $175 million, the film grossed $88 million at the U.S. box office, but topped its budget once overseas take was taken into account (grossing $176 million in foreign markets [1]).
Adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2006 dollars (USD), the budget for the movie was $231.6 million, and grossed $116.8 million at the U.S. box office and $232.9 million at the foreign box office.[2]
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[edit] Plot
Some time in the future (it is never made clear when), the polar ice caps have melted due to events not explained, but global warming is hinted. The source of such a great volume of water is also unexplained, given that the volume of water required to reach the tops of the highest mountains would require the melting of far more ice than exists on earth. The Earth's surface is almost entirely covered with water. The surviving humans have forgotten the past and believe in a modified creation myth in which God created the world as a ball covered with water, but that there is also dry land somewhere out there.
The survivors can be classified into four groups:
- Traders, who ply the water in boats, collecting things from the ocean floor to trade to each other
- Atoll Dwellers, who live in large floating constructs called atolls
- Smokers, so called because they smoke and trade cigarettes, but also because of the smoke they make by using oil-power machines, such as jetskis, that run off the oil left in oil tankers.
- Slavers, who are merely mentioned in the film, but never seen.
The antihero is a trader known only as the Mariner (Kevin Costner) who comes into an atoll to trade. He is a mutant of some sort, with webbed feet and gills. The atollers, who don't know what to make of him, try to kill him. At that moment, however, the smokers arrive in a raid on the atoll. They are in search of a young girl living there named Enola, who has what appears to be the path to dry land tattooed on her back. Her caretaker is Helen, a woman in her twenties or thirties, and they plan to escape with Gregor, the atoll's resident astrologer, for dry land (if they can find it) because, like the Mariner, they don't fit in properly.
But Gregor's escape balloon escapes too early (with him on it), leaving Helen and Enola stranded. They escape with the Mariner, who seems ill-pleased with their company.
Chasing them is Deacon, who is the 'captain' of a derelict oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez. He also wants to get to dry land, and has a number of skirmishes with the Mariner in his attempts to get Enola back.
Helen, meanwhile, wants to know where all the dry land went. The Mariner, who can breathe underwater, puts her in a diving bell made out of plastic, and swims down to a sunken city on the ocean floor to show her. While they are distracted beneath the ocean's surface, Deacon and the smokers board the boat. Enola hides to avoid capture. When Helen and the Mariner resurface, Deacon orders them to tell him where Enola is. When they both refuse to talk, Deacon pretends to shoot them and Enola emerges from hiding and is captured. After he has Enola, Deacon has his machine gunner open fire (the Mariner and Helen dive underwater to escape) and burn the Mariner's boat. Since Helen cannot breathe water, the Mariner offers, "to breathe for the both of [them]" which results, via some dubious biology (gills do not produce air), in a prolonged underwater kiss of life.
They are later rescued from the wreckage of the Mariner's trimaran by survivors of the atoll attack, including Gregor in his balloon.
Using a jet-ski the Mariner chases down the Exxon Valdez and boards it. Deacon is having a great celebration, during which he tosses gifts to the crew of the Valdez (such as tins of 'Smeat'), proclaiming they have found the map to dry land. After they have all left, the Mariner walks out onto the deck and threatens to throw a road flare down into the oil tanks unless Deacon gives back Enola. He refuses, saying that the trader would be crazy to blow up the ship. He throws the road flare in.
The ship explodes, and the Mariner manages to escape in time with Enola. They float at sea for a while after that and have one last battle with Deacon (who survived), before being rescued by Gregor. He and a few others have gone off to start anew. He finally figures out the map, and steers his balloon off in the direction of what does in fact turn out to be dry land. Gregor, Enola, Helen and the others start civilization anew on the island, which a plaque reveals to be the peak of Mount Everest. Enola, saddened to hear the Mariner leaving asks why he must go. He explains that he doesn't belong on dry land and that the ocean calls out to him. He finds a boat near the beach, and before sailing off, Enola and Helen look out to him slowly drifting away in the distance back to his old life.
Many elements of this movie are taken from Mad Max 2.
[edit] Cast
- Kevin Costner – Mariner/Trader/Ulysses/Ictio Sapiens
- Jeanne Tripplehorn – Helen
- Tina Majorino – Enola
- Dennis Hopper – Deacon
- Robert LaSardo – Smitty
- Michael Jeter – Old Gregor
- Jonathan Higley – Old Quicksilver
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Waterworld (1995) - Box office / business
- ^ Forbes.com staff, / (2006). Hollywood's Most Expensive Movies. Forbes.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-12.
