Why Waterworld is Worth Wasting Two Hours of Your Life

            For all you kiddies out there, no, Waterworld is not an aquatic theme park and I don’t mean Seaworld. Waterworld is a movie made in 1995 if the copyright date on the back of the box is to be believed. The movie stars Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper in a post apocalyptic world that is covered in, you guessed it, maple syrup. That last part is not true, it’s actually water. Anyways, the movie concerns Kevin Costner’s character, the Mariner, as he gets caught up in a crazy adventure with Jeanne Tripplehorn, a small child, and steampunk Santa in a search for dry-land and a race against Dennis Hoppers band of murderous thugs. My catch all phrase to describe this movie would be “Mad Max with boats and a plot.” Now, I’ve never actually seen Mad Max but I think the fact that the original only has like 16 lines of dialogue tells me all I need to know about how deep of a story is told there.

            Waterworld is, of course, more complex than your typical Mad Max clone (assuming that’s a thing) and it better well be considering it has a 2hr 17min runtime. However during those two hours you’ll be treated so beautiful shots of the ocean, an interesting and gritty world (ironic since there’s no more land), some really awesome stunt work throughout the lengthy and entertaining action scenes, young Jack Black, plenty of good jokes and gags (Mainly courtesy of Dennis Hopper), and even a shapely bare bum at one point for you perverts out there.

            It really is a great movie though, and the two hour runtime is entirely justified to tell the story and build the world and characters. It really has a lot of what some of the more lackluster modern films don’t. It’s got plenty of heart, well written characters, and interesting world and it comes from before the age of everything being CGI which makes the stunts and action that much more fun to watch. It really feels like a movie that couldn’t have been made today, some reasons are quite obvious when you watch it (many a reddit thread would be ablaze with fury over some of the “offensive” things in this film.) but other things aren’t so much. It really is rare for a modern movie to have so many sections and details told to you solely through visuals, but it pays off in a big way here to have a fair amount of quiet time within the movie where you’re just watching Costner do things within this fantasy world. It helps to organically build the setting as well as give a nice contrast to the bombastic action set pieces throughout.

            So if you’re like me and starved for movies in this little dry period between summer and holiday releases, maybe now would be a good time to check out Waterworld or watch it again if you’ve already seen it. I got my copy at Walmart from the bargain bin and it is on Amazon video if you’re interested, and you should be because it’s a great movie. At least that’s my (PERFECT) opinion.