Theme: Survival

Waterworld (1995) – Kevin Costner

Waterworld (1995) starring Kevin Costner

Waterworld is a post-apocalyptic Max Mad style movie, except everyone lives on boats & rigging above water, because the whole world is flooded.

Kevin Costner stars in this epic legendary movie and does a very good job of it.

The script is fluid – the action stays busy – the plot stays interesting – the acting & cinematography are on point.

Being a high budget movie with elaborate props, it cost $172 million to make, when only $100 million was initially budgeted. It cost a lot more and took a lot longer to make than originally expected, due to under-estimating the difficulty of filming on water (it was practically all filmed in Kawaihae Harbor, in Hawaii). Unexpected difficulties included the need to take more safety precautions (accidents happened), and the need to postpone filming on bad weather days. Many people were sacked following this apparent disaster, although with high income from the foreign box office the movie did make a small profit in the end, and more importantly to some people, we ended up with an epic movie to enjoy for decades thereafter.

I rate this movie as Pretty Good alongside Hackers which also came out in the summer of 1995 but cost barely a tenth of what Waterworld cost to produce. Still, as much as it was hailed a disaster for massively over-running its budget, Waterworld still eventually turned a profit while Hackers was commercially a flop. Anyway, I rate them both a tad better than Christopher Lambert’s cool movie The Hunted (1995); also a tad better than Steven Seagal’s best movies like Under Siege (1992) and The Glimmer Man (1996); but a tad inferior to The Quest (1996) for my taste – co starring Roger Moore, that was one of Van Damme’s best movies after Bloodsport – and I may be a bit biased as a martial artist favouring the martial arts movie (if I were a sailor maybe I’d put Waterworld right up there with the best movies ever made).

Kevin Costner in Waterworld (1995)

Crocodile Dundee (1986) – Paul Hogan

Crocodile Dundee poster

ACTION BUSYNESS ⭐⭐⭐⭐
MOOD SETTING ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
SCRIPT COHESION ⭐⭐⭐⭐
PLOT DENSITY ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is an oldie but goldie, based around a character who has outstanding reflexes and fighting ability not just with his fists and knives but also with throwing blunt objects and in utilising his environment smartly. Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee is an ingeniously skilled survivalist who is in his element in the Australian ‘bush’ but has many a trick up his sleeve on his strange trip to New York too.

High budget; plenty of entertaining scenes that keep impressing the viewer; decent supporting cast; and above all, an outstanding concept and lead performance.

Sequels

The immediate sequel, released in 1988, was just as good as the original.

But the third instalment, which arrived much later, in 2001, was not on the same level – not even close.

And then there’s a fourth movie in the saga, released as recently as 2020, called The Very Excellent Mr Dundee, which is a self-parodic comedy-drama and a poor excuse for intellectual humour, even though it co-stars the comedy legend that is John Cleese. It’s a million miles from the original two movies which were a totally different genre but still had far better humour than this recent tripe.

Crocodile Dundee II poster