‘Waterworld’ Cost A Lot To Make, But It’s Still Not A Very Good Movie
We can now forget the reported $170-million-plus budget attached to “Waterworld,” widely reported as the biggest box office loser in history.
According to some sources, Renny Harlin’s “Cutthroat Island” lost even more money.
But an overinflated budget was only part of the problem anyway. Even at bargain prices, “Waterworld” just isn’t very good.
Star Kevin Costner, who doubled as one of the film’s producers, plays the Mariner, a mutant who can breathe underwater. He reluctantly ends his solo-sailing sojourn to team with a woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her adopted daughter (Tina Majorino) who, like most other residents of this world of marginal existence, are searching for something called Dry Land.
A blatant rip-off of George Miller’s “Mad Max” series - aside from the harsh elements, their foes include a band of Jet-Ski pirates called The Smokers - “Waterworld” boasts a screenplay that poses too many unanswered questions (where, for example, did all the cigarettes come from?), a cipher of a lead actor in Costner, a screenplay that takes itself way too seriously and a director who understands bangs and booms well enough but who hasn’t a clue when it comes to simple visual storytelling.
Only Dennis Hopper seems to understand that these kinds of movies work best when the running subtext includes humor. **-1/2 Rated PG-13
The mystery of rampo
**
It starts out as a cartoon, evolves into a mystery revolving around a respected Japanese writer and ends up being an examination of depravity. Using a real-life Japanese novelist (the late Rampo Edogawa) as his protagonist, Japanese-writer director Kazuyoshi Okuyama probes a fictional maze of murder, lust, sado-masochism, black magic and ghostly presences. And the resulting erotic mix is enough to surprise, if not shock, anyone used to the less-fevered flavor of mainstream Japanese cinema. It’s seldom boring to watch, yet it ends up feeling more like a self-indulgent exercise in exhibitionism. Not rated
Jade
*
Poor ex-“NYPD Blue” cast member David Caruso. Another flop like this and he may find himself doing guest shots on “Murder, She Wrote.” Here, he stars as an ambitious San Francisco prosecutor who gets involved in a murder investigation involving his best friend (Chazz Palminteri) and his friend’s wife (Linda Fiorentino), who just happens to be his own ex-lover. The whole mystery, such as it is, is supposed to involve irony - sort of a physician-heal-thyself sort of story - and centers on a call girl ring and hot shot politicians. Trouble is, the screenplay was written by Joe Eszterhas (“Showgirls”) and directed by William Friedkin, who except for another of his trademark chase scenes, does little to make this film understandable or watchable. And, actually, as for that chase scene through the streets of San Francisco: Peter Yates did in better in 1968’s “Bullitt.” Rated R
Rating Blockbuster
Blockbuster, the national chain that prides itself on not carrying NC-17-rated videos, has seen its name become an actual video vocabulary term.
Writing about the harsh winter weather’s effect on East Coast video fans, Peter M. Nichols of the New York Times News Service quoted a Manhattan video store owner Michael Becker. Becker told Nichols that his clients typically pose a common question to him about the dual-rated film “Showgirls” (which was released in an R and an NC-17 version).
“The first thing customers ask is, ‘Do you have the real one or the Blockbuster one?”’ Becker said.
, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEW TO VIEW Now available: “Waterworld” (MCA/Universal), “Jade” (Paramount), “Moving the Mountain” (Hallmark), “The Mystery of Rampo” (Hallmark), “Sister-In-Law” (Paramount). Available on Tuesday: “Desperado” (Columbia TriStar), “The Big Green” (Disney), “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court,” (Disney), “Kids,” (TBA), “National Lampoon’s Senior Trip,” (New Line), “Something to Talk About,” (Warner)