On July 28, 1995, Waterworld, the Kevin Costner-led sci-fi blockbuster, set sail. I was too young to see it when it first came out and by the time that I started watching older movies the few things I heard about Waterworld was generally how bad it was and that Costner’s hero had webbed feet. So, as the movie’s 30th anniversary is upon us — and it’s streaming on Peacock in the US — I decided to finally give Waterworld a watch and see if what I’ve heard about it… holds water (sorry, couldn’t resist). FYI, I’ll be getting into some Waterworld SPOILERS below.
Waterworld, directed by Kevin Reynolds (who also directed Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) from a script by Peter Rader and David Twohy, is set in a future where the polar ice caps have melted and covered the Earth in water. Costner plays a drifter simply known as the Mariner, a mutant with webbed feet, gills and a dislike of normal humans. However, he ends up having to protect a woman, Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and young girl, Enola (Tina Majorino), as they are being pursued by a maniacal Dennis Hopper (his character is named Deacon in the movie, but I just kept referring to him as Dennis Hopper) as the girl holds the secret to finding dry land.
Looking at the actual reaction to Waterworld and its box office, I was actually surprised there wasn’t as much vitriol as its reputation had led me to believe. While the movie does have a “Rotten” score of 45% from critics and a 44% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, actually reading reviews from some of the biggest critics of 1995 — Roger Ebert, Todd McCarthy and Owen Gleiberman — the reactions were more middling than downright bad. At the box office, the movie earned $88 million in the US, which today wouldn’t be a lot of money but was good enough for top 10 for the whole year of 1995.
Having now watched the movie with my own two eyes, I can see where those critics were coming from. As pure blockbuster fare, there’s some halfway decent action sequences and it’s not an interminable way to spend two hours. But I wouldn’t go as far as saying Waterworld is good or deserving of cult classic status, but it also isn't so bad it’s fun to watch. It’s more just blah.
Waterworld desperately wants to be Mad Max with boats. Its bare bones plot basically checks all the boxes — loner comes across individuals that he reluctantly has to save from a crazy villain, eventually forming a bond before deciding he must move on and continue his loner ways. The biggest reason why that doesn’t work as well here as it does with the Mad Max franchise is Costner.
Most people today know Costner from his role as John Dutton in Yellowstone (also streaming on Peacock), where a scowl was basically his default setting, but his gruffness was part of the character’s appeal. But in Waterworld, Costner’s orneriness does him no favors. While the movie attempts to go through the motions of establishing why Costner’s Mariner is this way and how his time with Tripplehorn and Majorino’s characters eventually softens his heart, I just don’t buy it. It’s a flat performance and his character honestly struggles to be likeable for a lot of the movie.
I’m just not sure if at the time, Costner could play this type of character. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Costner was best known for roles where he may have had some gruffness to him, but his natural charisma shone through (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) or when he’s playing a much more affable character (Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves). Even if we look at his character in Yellowstone, or his rough cowboy in Horizon: An American Saga, the toughness comes alongside a noble quality that tells us this is someone we can respect even if they’re not dolling out hugs. None of those qualities are present in Costner’s performance as the Mariner.
The other big issue with Waterworld is that there are details that just don’t make any sense. For instance, it’s supposedly been at least a few generations since the melting polar ice caps flooded the Earth, to the point where some believe that any remaining dry land is a myth. Not even the Mariner has found dry land, yet he has a plant (albeit a small one that’s not looking so great) at the beginning of the movie and then comes across a tomato plant on the atoll he meets Helen and Enola on. What we see from that atoll, it’s unlikely it was growing any tomato plants.
Where did these plants come from, and wouldn’t they be arguably the most precious things to these characters? But after we see them, they’re barely acknowledged again.
A couple of other things that I just found odd. I still don’t understand how all they needed to do to understand the tattoo on Enola’s back to find dry land. It whittles down to them translating the Chinese-looking symbols to be latitude and longitude coordinates and something involving the magnetic poles of the Earth being inverted, but it’s not easily understandable in the context of the movie (this video does a deep dive to explain it, though).
Another part comes at the very end, when the group gets to dry land and they find a small village where people once lived. There, they find two skeletons, and one of them suggests they bury them under the dirt, believing it was their way. Again, how would he know this? It’s been generations since anyone they knew would have been on dry land and the skeletons they find are simply lying on a bed, there’s no evidence that these people dug graves, or any that we see at least. This one is nitpicky, admittedly, but it’s just another detail that wasn’t thought out or properly explained.
There are a few things that worked for the movie, particularly Hopper’s fun performance. Still, Waterworld’s biggest fault is that it’s middling at best, with Costner unable to give us a main character worth rooting for. I wouldn’t put it up amongst some of the worst movies I’ve seen, but it’s not one I’m going to have much desire to ever watch again.
However, if you disagree and actually love Waterworld, or want to try it for yourself to see if you agree or not with my takes, then you can stream Waterworld on Peacock in the US; in the UK the movie is available via digital on-demand.
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