Waterworld's Warnings

I don’t know why I’m admitting this, but I watched Waterworld this past weekend.

Maybe it was because of the post tailgate daze, or the Taqueria La Vaquita-induced food coma spell. From start to finish, I was unable to tear my eyes away. It was like watching a train wreck. Except a train wreck where Kevin Costner was drinking his own urine and had webbed feet.

Waterworld is one of those movies where you just can’t help but ask yourself, “What the f—?” At a budget, inflation adjusted, of $251 million, it is the (source-depending) fourth or sixth most expensive movie ever made, and star Kevin Costner supplied $20 million of his own fortune for its production. That check didn’t even get Costner a Razzie.

As I watched a one-eyed Dennis Hopper and thousands of extras whose homeless-looking wardrobes probably each cost a year of Duke tuition, I pondered many questions: were the makers of Waterworld convinced that it would revolutionize cinema? Doesn’t Jean Tripplehorn look just like Michael Jackson? How much would one of those flame-throwing jet skis go for on eBay?

Skyrocketing movie budgets, an increasingly common industry reality, can go one of two ways: critical and financial success (Titanic) or plague-riddled disasters (Cleopatra). I wonder then what will happen with the film about to take the title of most expensive of all time: James Cameron’s Avatar. Cameron’s epic, more than a decade in the making, has been touted as one to change film forever. Cameron has proclaimed the 2-D to 3-D jump to be cinema’s next major transition, following in the footsteps of silent to sound, from black-and-white to color.

But nothing is certain. Avatar’s Web site promises to take you to a “spectacular world beyond imagination.” Please let there be a drought.