WATERWORLD
It's not "Fishtar" - it's "The Water Warrior."
Reviewed by Steve Biodrowski
Thanks to production woes that were extensively covered in both the trade and the mainstream press (the budget ballooned to $180-million, an unheard of sum in 1995), this film earned a reputation as an ISHTAR-like example of a costly Hollywood debacle, long before it was completed and released. At one point, co-screenwriter David Twohy even published an open letter in Daily Variety, insisting that it was unfair to pre-judge the film based on behind-the-scenes gossip about what went wrong during filming. Nevertheless, the film inevitably fell prey to the prejudices ignited by its bad pre-release press, which included stories not only about budget overruns but also about clashes between star Kevin Costner and director Kevin Reynolds (who was taken off the project during post-production, leaving Costner, who also executive produced, to oversee the final cut). The result was mostly panned when it was finally released, and yet it went on to do well enough at the box office to show that, if the budget had not gotten completely out of control, the film could have been a substantial profit-maker.
In assessing the film, one should point out that what is wrong with WATERWORLD has little to do with budgets, schedules, hurricanes, fallout between the two Kevins, or any of the other dramatic behind-the-scenes elements that garnered so much attention during production. There seems to be a natural predilection on the part of the Hollywood press to dramatize what goes on in the film industry, and a good drama demands a good ending. It seemed fitting at the time, therefore, to declare the movie a disastrous example of out-of-control studio spending on a film that turned out to be worthless artistically.
However, that is not the way the film actually turned out. Whatever was spent on making this movie, was well spent, delivering goods worthy the price of admission. WATERWORLD contains some of the most astounding action scenes ever committed to celluloid; the sheer scale of spectacle is truly amazing, and it’s doubtful that viewers—except the most grumpy spoil-sports—would walk away bored.
There are substantial problems, but they are conceptual in nature—that is, irrelevant to the travails of production that turned the press against the film. What’s wrong was always wrong, starting with the script, which becomes apparent whenever the action dies down and the characters start to speak.
It would be easy to descend into the old “style over substance” complaint and insist that all this film needed was a good rewrite to get the script in shape. However, when a film delivers action like this, an intricately plotted, well-developed screenplay with thematic depth and complex characterizations is almost irrelevant; a simple story, efficiently told, will do quite well enough.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers themselves seem not to realize this. Instead of making a definite break with the conventions of the three-act dramatic structure, they lumber around, vaguely trying to convince us that their mythic ambitions match the scale of the production. Despite this, there’s barely any plot on view: the lead character is basically trying to go about his business, and it’s other forces that keep intruding to make him take action. Which might be acceptable, if the film would just cut to the chase.
Sadly, it does not. In between the set pieces are some of the most pointless dialogue scenes ever recorded—pointless, because characters keep talking about doing things that they never actually do. The Mariner (Costner) threatens to throw his sea-going hitchhikers off his boat. The Deacon (Dennis Hopper)’s thugs threaten to cut the MacGuffin tattoo off the back of the little girl (who’s so obnoxious that we rather wish the Mariner had thrown her overboard). In order to convince us that the Mariner is a tough-guy, loner anti-hero, we get at least two scenes in which he tells his new passengers he has no use for them. If ever there was a film that cried out for the fast-forward button so that we could get to the good stuff, this is it.
As was pointed out at the time of its release, the storyline is a point-by-point copy of THE ROAD WARRIOR (the second film starring Mel Gibson as Mad Max), transposed from a post-apocalyptic desert to a post-apocalyptic ocean. The difference is that George Miller and company managed to tell their story in two-thirds the time. Miller also had the advantage of Mel Gibson, who knows how to play a mythic loner who actually has something going on behind his stoic façade. Costner has proven his capacity for playing less-than-perfect anti-heroes (e.g., A PERFECT WORLD), but he brings little to the role here besides a vague kind of accent that is hardly an improvement over his attempt at sounding English in ROBIN HOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES.
Dennis Hopper, on the other hand, would seem to have played this type of villainous role once too often, yet he manages to be a total delight. He really comes on as if playing a psycho were something fresh to him, and the only character-interaction scenes that have any interest belong to him. His verbal bullying of that obnoxious girl even gains him a certain vicarious audience empathy (too bad he never carries out any of his threats, however).
Interestingly, this film's strengths almost precisely match those of a previous effort written by Twohy, 1994’s TERMINAL VELOCIY. That underrated item had a serviceable plot at best, but strung along its amazing highlights at a rapid-fire clip and with tongue firmly in cheek. The difference with WATERWORLD is that, apparently, the magnitude of the production convinced the filmmakers that seriousness was the order of the day, so they created a film that takes more time than necessary to get where it’s going, as if there really is something profound to be contemplated among the explosions. Sadly, no—there is not. And there’s nothing in this film that could not have been conveyed in well under two hours.
Not to put all the blame on Twohy, director Kevin Reynolds’s previous film, the outrageously pretentious RAPA NUI, suffered from similar problems. Here, at least, Reynolds surrounded his mythic pretensions with some of the most muscular thrills of his career, which go a long way toward eclipsing his weaknesses in other areas (John Boorman he’s not). There’s nothing wrong with film as action-painting. There’s nothing wrong with using the most basic of stories as a framework for displays of virtuoso style. There’s no reason to take something that could have been lean, fast, and efficient, and then pad it out with useless “dramatic” filler. The sooner filmmakers realize this and stop overwriting simple scripts with misguided attempts at developing the story, the better off audiences will be.
TRIVIA
The original screenplay for WATERWORLD was written in the 1980s as a low-budget rip-off of THE ROAD WARRIOR. Independent producer Roger Corman passed on the project, reportedly because he thought that filming on the ocean would drive the budget up as high as $10-million. Shot as a major studio project a decade later, the final tally was considerably larger.
