Just Films & That is a podcast that aims to celebrate films we think might be underrated or underseen. In this episode, Alice chose Waterworld from 1995. She had fond memories of this film as a child, but after learning what critics really thought about it, she just had to go back and give it another watch. So, what was the verdict? You can listen to all episodes of Just Films & That now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 A man who still searches.
00:03 A woman who still hopes.
00:06 And a small child who carries the secret to a new beginning.
00:12 Waterworld is an action-adventure film from 1995 starring Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper.
00:17 It's basically a story of what would happen if the ice caps melted and the world was, as far as they know in the film,
00:22 completely covered with water with everyone existing and living on the water
00:26 and in sort of little floating towns and villages and things like that.
00:30 Often referred to as one of the most famous box office flops really, isn't it?
00:34 Or critical flops. So why did you pick it? Is it to do with that or is there another reason?
00:39 So I picked this film because I thought maybe, maybe it was underrated.
00:43 So I saw this film when I was a kid and I really loved it and it wasn't until I got quite a bit older
00:48 that I came to know about this reputation that it had as being quite bad
00:52 and that a lot of people didn't really like it very much.
00:55 So at the time of recording, it gets a 6.3 on IMDb and then over on Rotten Tomatoes,
01:00 it gets a 45% from the critics and a 43% from the audience.
01:05 So I did think going into it that it might be underrated. I thought it was really good.
01:10 I thought, nah, everybody's wrong. I know the truth and they're all just missing something.
01:14 But having watched it again for the podcast, I will admit that I was wrong.
01:19 There is quite a lot wrong with this film and there are a lot of things to not like about it.
01:24 But let's start with the positives and let's start with some of the things that I did like about it.
01:28 So I absolutely love the concept.
01:30 You know, what if climate change really did happen in its most extreme way possible
01:34 and nearly the entire planet was covered in water?
01:37 I think the opportunity for creativity here is endless and you do get some of that in the film.
01:42 You learn a little bit about how these characters, how civilization as it is in this film,
01:46 has managed to last the 500 years since the disaster happened.
01:50 Also, some of the visuals I thought were really impressive.
01:52 You get these really cinematic wide shots of vessels and ships and all sorts coasting along the horizon.
01:59 Some really good world building, that idea of what if the world was all water?
02:03 How would society work? How would people buy things, use things, eat things?
02:07 I think the highlight for me was probably Dennis Hopper,
02:10 because he's just absolutely chewing the scenery in this film.
02:14 Tell me a little bit about why it is flawed, why it isn't what you wanted it to be.
02:18 So there are many reasons for this. Some of it's around the script,
02:22 some of it's around the story development, some of it's around the character development.
02:25 But I think the huge glaring thing for me here is that the genre feels completely muddled.
02:31 Sometimes it feels like an action film, sometimes it feels like a fantasy film,
02:35 sometimes it feels really family friendly, and other times it absolutely does not.
02:39 There's some quite grotesque and some dark subject matter that we explore in this
02:43 that naturally would come with this dystopic world that we find ourselves in.
02:47 Because it doesn't really commit to any of these things, it just feels really jumbled up.
02:51 And I kept thinking, who is this really for? Who is the target audience?
02:55 After watching it, watching it with more mature and more analytical eyes,
02:59 there are a lot of problems with this film, so I think maybe it is probably appropriately rated.