Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Waterworld (1995)

"If you'll notice the arterial nature of the blood coming from the hole in my head, you can assume that we're all having a real lousy day." - Deacon

"You know, I thought you were stupid, friend. But I underestimated you. You are a total freaking retard! Ha-ha-ha..." - Deacon

"I don't have a goddamn clue. Don't worry, they'll row for a month before they figure out I'm fakin' it." - Deacon

First things first. I'm not a Kevin Costner fan. Never have been. But take a look at this movie! I thought forever that it was gonna be a piece of shit, but they should've called this MAD MAX 4!! Mad Max underwater! That's basically what it is. "With no where left to go, those that remained took to the seas." Or something like that. I feel like you could've slapped Mel Gibson in here and it wouldn't have been such a flop at the theaters. But what can I say? Old Kevin Costner holds his own. He only had about ten lines in the whole thing, and plus he had Dennis Hopper to play the foil, and you can never go wrong with him. Those two alongside a pretty hot Jeanne Triplehorn in one of the biggest (and most expensive) box office flops ever to grace the silver screen, I present to you WATERWORLD!!

So Kevin C plays this dude that everyone calls "the mariner". They call him this because he never gives us his name and he's obvious a skilled boatsmith. It is some time in the distant future. We are led to believe that as time went along, the polar ice caps all melted and gave way to a new world where those who survived lived on whatever boats were left behind. It is so far into the future in fact that the surviving members of society were born believing that this is how it had always been and always will be, water as far as you go in all directions, with precious few small islands existing somewhere out there. But there are old timers who heard stories and spread rumors that they believe that there is a sacred place somewhere called "Dryland". When the movie begins, we have this unnamed chap floating around the sea in this wild boat that is super fast and is like a sailboat with training wheels. 
The guy on his boat speeds up to this floating city to trade some "dry" dirt. He's got a pickle jar full of it. The people are suspicious as to wear the Hell he got the dirt from as its super rare. He is very tight lipped and trades buying himself some drinks and an orange tree. He makes a shitload of bread off of his dirt and then when he's about to leave, the people in the floating city turn on him. They figure out he's a mutant and has webbed toes. They don't like freaks around those parts, so they decide to turn him into compost. About that time, a bunch of Dreadnots on jetskis (that need some serious muffler work) calling themselves "smokers" come into town like a bat outta hell looking for this little girl with a treasure map backplate. Supposedly, the little girl floated into town in a basket and someone had tattooed something on her map that was rumored to be a map to "Dryland". 
The bossman of the Smoker's is this dude who calls himself the Deacon (Hopper). He is the captain of this huge oil tanker that we later figure out is supposed to be what's left of the Exxon Valdez. For those of you reading this born in the 90's, that was a tanker in Alaska that ran aground and spilled thousands and thousands of gallon's of oil. It was a national tragedy. Anyway, he wants to kidnap the little girl and be the first one to found a city on Dryland that he'll be the ruler of. Basically he's your everyday ruthless villain with dictator/world domination tendencies a la Cobra Commander. The chick and the little girl miss their chance to escape with the crazy oldtimer on his homemade hot air balloon and end up hitching with the mariner. He can't stand them though because he's a loner. He ends up cutting their hair off to make lashings for the mast. He does end up liking them though because the little girl makes him feel like a piece of shit and says she's his friend. Also we find out that the mariner has all this cool shit because he swims to the bottom of the oceans and finds cool stuff like sony walkmans, clocks, and old copies of national geographic. He tries to tell the girls that there is no dry land, because he's sailed so far and believes that he knows everything. 
Around then the mariner takes the chick to the bottom of the ocean to the ruins of Denver to show her that he gets his cool stuff from where humans "used to" hang out. She then realizes that water has now covered all that and her dreams are vanquished. While they're down there, Deacon and some Smokers board his sailboat, kidnap the little chick and destroy the boat. Luckily the little old grandpa flies his balloon over to them, rescues and takes them to the place where all the survivors of the floating city are chilling. The mariner takes a jetski and blazes a trail to find the little chick. The Deacon is only in charge by sheer cleverness. He'd be overthrown in a minute if they knew he had no idea what he was doing. So they're looking the little girl over when the mariner comes on deck and threatens them by holding a flare over their refining oil tank (which makes no sense whatsoever. I know very little about refining oil, but to run that ship and all those exhaust blowing jetskis, theres no way they have the capacity to refine that oil on that ship. That ship was made to haul oil and thats about it. We've seen THE ROAD WARRIOR! You need a whole city for that!). They call his bluff and SHWOOP! He drops the thing down the shaft blowing the whole goddamn ship sky high. BUT... That's not the last of the Deacon! Bungee jumping was REALLY BIG in the mid 90s and the next scene proves that. I won't tell you how this one ends, because its a pretty fun ride even though its a bit of a stretch, and the acting is pisspoor. But as far as another far fetched sequel to MAD MAX goes, there are literally a few hundred who have tried and they're much worse. I thought I would hate it, but it kinda ruled. 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014