LAND!!!! Just kidding!
After I finished watching "Waterworld", I was a little confused about a lot of things, so I did some extensive research. How extensive? Seven days went by from the time the ending credit's rolled to me writing this first paragraph. What was I confused about? I was confused because I thought "Waterworld" was going to be the crappiest film ever in the history of the world because I been hearing people and critics say it's such a major flop, so of course I think, "Well, if 'Waterworld' sucks so bad and everyone is making fun of it, then I'll make fun of it too." And I went around bad mouthing "Waterworld", saying things like "My god it sucked!!" and "'Waterworld' killed my dog!!!!" and "'Waterworld' slept with my girlfriend!!" And I was prepared to hate it.
Then I watched the movie and I honestly didn't think it was all that bad. Granted, it's not the BEST movie in the history of the world, and there are a lot of questions that aren't answered, and sometimes the acting was hokey, but if you look beyond all of that, it's kind of a decent movie.
A narrator tells us briefly using the "Universal" globe logo, that the ice caps melted which caused land everywhere to be submerged underwater. That's about all he tells us. After that, we have to figure out how much time passed since that happened, how the people in the movie survived, and what Kevin Costner's character's name is. So to help you guys out, I'll figured all of this out for you.
Let's start with the first question: How much time passed?
There is a large amount of adults, but only a handful of old people, so if I got my math correct, and keep in mind i suck at math, I'll say...15 years went by. Now to figure out what year the ice caps melt. According to scientist, this could happen in the year 2025...or 2125...something like that. So let's say it's the year...2215.
How did the people survive? Well, naturally there are a lot of good swimmers around, a lot of them make it to the Olympics, so they really had no problem here, they just swam and swam upwards until they reached the surface and lived on whatever loose things that were floating. Eventually they got around to screwing and one things leads to another...
And what's Kevin Costner's name in the movie? They honestly don't say, even the characters IN the movie say "He doesn't have a name". What's up with that? So let's name him...Kevin. That should be easy.
So to sum up, it's the year 2215, everyone's ancestors are swimmers, and the main characer is Kevin.
Kevin is on his boat, pissing in a jar. He takes the pee and runs it through a machine, then drinks what comes out. Seriously. And we find out that people who are on boats drifting are called..."Drifters". Original, huh? We learn this cause Kevin runs into another Drifter. And when two Drifter's meet, it's only polite to trade things to live. The second drifter tells Kevin there's an "atoll", a big thing that floats where people go to buy supplies and whatnot, not that far, then Kevin runs into who I think are suppose to be pirates but they're called "Smokers", because they, well, smoke. Now another question comes up. Where are they getting their cigarettes? This question is easy if you know anything about hydrophonic weed. I'll just let you come to your own conclusions.
Kevin prepares his fancy ass boat and escapes the Smokers. And when I say fancy ass boat, I mean fancy ass boat. He got all kinds of neat things hidden, and a touch of a lever brings up a sail and a button brings up a gun, and other things that's hard to describe.
Kevin and his boat, which I'll named The S.S Dances With Wolves, arrives at the "atoll" and he says he has dirt. Apparently this is a big deal to everyone and they treat him like a god because he has dirt. I'm not exactly sure what they find so appealing about dirt. Do they roll around in it then say "Hey we're dirty! WOO!!" Do they need mud for mud wrestling? This I cannot answer, but I know the "atoll" people treat it as if it was cocaine, weighing it and whatnot. With the money, called chits, he gets from the dirt he goes to their store, which is run by the ultra hot chick Helen, played be Jeanne Tripplehorn. He buys whatever she has, including her shelves and he sets to leave.
While leaving Kevin runs into some Asians who want him to get it on with their 12 year old daughter so she can get pregnant because "having her relatives do it gets boring after a while". Nice imagry, huh? Kevin politely says no, the Asians wonder "The hell is up with this guy?" as if refusing to do it with a 12 year old is odd and they have guards stop him. Then they found out Kevin's dirty little secret: he has no wong.
Actually, no, that's just what I thought. It turns out he actually has gills and he's a mutant, or a mute-o as they say, and they put him in a cage.
Meanwhile, Helen is caring for this little girl named Enola, who has an odd tattoo on her back. According to rumor, the tattoo leads the way to "Dryland", which is what these people consider heaven, and everyone desperately wants to go there. Some old dude who also lives with Helen (they never explain the relationship between anyone here so I'll just say Helen is a sex slave), named Gregor, is trying to figure out the tattoo. Enola points to Kevin saying he could figure it out.
How does she know that? What if Kevin is as dumb as a box of rocks? I mean he got himself throw in a cage, how the hell is he gonna figure out a tattoo?
Anyway, the next day comes, the atoll people sentence Kevin to death and lower him into some weird sludge thing that dead people go when The Smokers attack. Leading the Smokers? Dennis Hopper, of course. He's "The Deacon", and apparently all the Smokers are his cousins. The Smokers attack, everyone fights, things get blown up, Kevin is somewhat lowered into the dead people muck, when Helen saves him. But she saves him if only he'll take her and Enola with him. Kevin wanted out of the muck, says sure.
What about Gregor? He did something that caused something else to happen and before you know it, he's flying away like The Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz". That didn't make any sense? Watching the scene doesn't help clear it up.
Kevin, Helen, and Enola get on Kevin's boat and try to leave when The Deacon interferes and tries to blow them up. Of course, Kevin works his magic and he ends up blowing up The Deacon's boat. Deacon survived but he lost his left eye in the process.
Then the movie kinda slows down and we get scenes of Kevin, Helen, and Enola trying to live on Kevin's boat. Helen "offers herself" to Kevin by taking all of her clothes off but he doesn't do anything, which upset me and really lead me to believe he didn't have a wong. Kevin threatens to kill Enola saying three of them can't survive on a boat, but he eventually changes his mind. And a bunch of other scenes with Kevin walking around all mean and grouchy towards Enola as she draws all over his boat in crayon. Meanwhile, The Deacon is after Enola to try to figure out the tattoo themselves.
After awhile, Kevin spots a barter rig and is about to stop when they notice something isn't right. The Smokers took it over hoping to trap Kevin and get the girl. Of course, Kevin is super smart and manages to blow up more things and get away.
Now, if you just had a run in with your enemies and you now know they're after you, what would you do? Try to escape as soon as possible, right? Well, not Kevin. He decides to not only teach Enola how to swim because she doesn't know how to, which is weird cause she's surrounded by FREAKIN' WATER all the damn time, but he decides to show Helen the real "Dryland", which is about 200 miles beneath them. He puts her in some airtight balloon and since he breathes water, he can swim and swim and swim all he wants, so he drags the balloon down and shows her the ancient city. She is awestruck.
Then, much to their surprise (duh), The Smokers take over Kevin's boat and snatch the girl while they're underwater. Then they burn the boat. Which is really like Kevin's home in away. And if your home was set on fire and ruined, you'll be all upset, crying, pissed off, and wanting to kill a bunch of prostitues, right? What's Kevin's response?
Kevin (Very lackluster): My boat...
And that's about it. Then Kevin and Helen decide to boink on the wreck, not caring that Enola is in Dennis Hopper's hands.
Gregor flies by and picks up Helen and Kevin and takes them to their new "atoll", where everyone is pissed off because Kevin wants to go back for Enola and they know that he's just gonna lead The Smokers back to them. But Kevin, being the loner that he is, takes off and arrives at The Smoker's boat, which Deacon called "The Deez".
While Deacon is giving a grand speech to his crew, Kevin is in the ship just killing random people. When the crew finally goes down, Kevin comes up and threatens Deacon by saying he's gonna drop a flare into a pipe that leads to the thousand gallons of oil that is below. Deacon calls Kevin's bluff and Kevin drops it, blowing up the ship.
No, they don't die, what you thinking? Just certain parts of the ship blow up. The part the main characters are on do NOT blow up. Kevin kills some more people and chases Deacon, who had Enola, to a plane nearby. They're about to fly away when Kevin does more of his neat tricks to stop the plane, making it crash back down.
Yet again, no they don't die. Jeez, just what is your problem? Everyone is fine, even Deacon, which doesn't seem to bother Kevin too much, he just grabs the girl and tries to escape. Flying overhead is Helen, Gregor, and...some atoll dude that looks like a young Jon Voight. They pick up Kevin and Enola, and Deacon as well. Kevin knocks down Deacon and he goes crashing into the sea. Does he just drown and die? NO!!! Of course not!! Jesus Christ, you're an idiot for thinking such stupid things!! God!!!
Anyway, Deacon just gets out of the water, goes to a jet ski and shoots Enola so she falls into the water.
Don't make me angry, I'm telling you, she's ok, dammit!! They all rush to save her but Kevin makes his own bungee cord and bungee jumps down, grabs Enola, and as they spring back up, Deacon and two surviving Smokers all crash into each other.
Yes, they're all dead now. Finally.
After flying for what I think is a day and a half, Gregor somehow realizes what the tattoo means, follows it, and they arrive, finally at "Dryland".
What do you think "Dryland" is? Is it a city? A village? Just a tiny island? Well, I don't think it's any of those things. It looks like a huge forest that just happens to have huts and horses on it. Everyone's all happy and stuff, but Kevin doesn't feel right.
Enola thinks it's, get this, "land sickness". HA HA!! Get it?! LAND sickness!! Because they were on the sea for so long and...you know...
Well anyway, Kevin realizes since he's half fish he belongs in the sea and, well, he just kinda leaves. And that's about it.
Oh, something I forgot to mention. There's a scenes where an airplane belonging to The Smoker's fly over Kevin's boat trying to get the girl. The pilot of the plane, I'm not shitting you, is played by Jack Black. I didn't know this until the ending credits, because he's covered up with a hat and goggles and is rather dirty looking. Ok, some people could argue that he's always dirty looking but I literally mean he's dirty looking. But anyway, yeah, he's the pilot. He doesn't say much and is just in that one scene, but he's there. Look out for him.
So besides the flimsy acting, huge plot holes, and the fact that everyone in the movie has nine lives, I didn't see what was so terrible about this movie. Maybe people just didn't wanna think about what it would be like if this really happen and the ice caps melted and we'd all have to swim and grow gills and commit incest to survive, so all the people and critics got scared and instead of admitting they were scared, they just said, "Um...don't see this movie!! It sucks!!!" So you know what I say...You all are morons!!
There, I feel better.
2 stars.
"Waterworld" on IMDb.com:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0114898/