Shark that got away

film full of surprises

WATERWORLD (PG), directed by Kevin Reynolds, on general release from

tomorrow

WATER, water everywhere and not a drop to drink? Hardly, because right

at the start of Waterworld Kevin Costner gives a most interesting

display of how to transform one's urine into drinking water by means of

filtering it through a Heath Robinson contraption of glass tubes and

phials.

Interesting admittedly, but not the most appealing of images with

which to launch what turns out to be, not the disaster epic of legend,

but a thoroughly entertaining adventure set in a world drowned after the

polar ice caps have melted.

It is a case of wet, wet, wet, if ever there was, although not the one

the futurologists predict. Drought is what they foretell.

Costner plays the Mariner, an aquatic Mad Max, half-man, half-fish,

who scavenges the seabed for a living while sailing the seas in a

splendid, rusty catamaran. Earth is more precious than diamonds,

yesterday's metal artefacts are trading goods, and everyone dreams of

finding dry land.

The film's problem is not that it is terrible, but that it cost too

much -- a record #107.8m. The chances of it ever getting its money back

are low, hence the badmouthing.

The director, Kevin Reynolds, who made Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

with Costner, has done a good job, although he and his star fell out

badly at the editing stage and the finished result may not be all he

hoped for. But good as it is, it remains a terrible waste of money

because the routine sci-fi story does not justify such vast expenditure.

Any tale set almost entirely at sea is going to be costly, but there

were other less justifiable costs and the Atoll, the hideously expensive

floating island on which the tale starts, could easily have been built

on dry land and, with the aid of computer technology, translated to the

waters, which is what eventually happened after the wretched thing sank

in 160 feet of water.

It is never adequately explained how the Mariner -- mad Max in a cod

piece rather than black leather, with gills behind his ears which

facilitate his trade, became half-man half-fish. Max was a family man

driven mad after his wife and child were killed by marauders who roamed

the post-atomic futureworld they lived in.

Costner is an enigma, and has none of Mel Gibson's self-mocking ironic

approach to such roles. Gibson always implies that ''Really it is all

utterly ridiculous, if you think about it, but don't think, just sit

back and enjoy it -- like I am''. Costner, a dull actor when miscast,

could not be funny if he tried and, clearly deadly serious, has no such

self-awareness. He is making a statement about the future, just as he

was about the American dream in Dances With Wolves. That the statement

is banal is neither here nor there. To Kevin it is a Big Thought.

Waterworld has been dubbed Kevinsgate and Kevintar, a reference to

those notorious turkeys, Heaven's Gate and Ishtar, but the comparison is

unfair. The Kevins' crime is not to have ended up with an unwatchable

film, rather, having spent enough money to build a sea elephant, they

have built only a shrimp. It is an amusing, thrilling, occasionally

astonishing shrimp, but it is never a sea elephant -- or even a small

shark.

The best things are the boats, especially the Mariner's catamaran

which is full of surprises. He has a way with a block and tackle which

allows him to soar to the top of the mast, dangle in the air, dive

umpteen feet into the ocean, produce harpoon guns out of nowhere, and

slide down the massive main-sail with the greatest of ease as he fights

the baddies in a style Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn would have

admired.

The baddies, called Smokers -- pirates who ride motorised surfboards

-- are led by Deacon (Dennis Hopper at his most camp, the film's

second-best thing). A one-eyed, balding evil genius seeking dry land,

Deacon gets at least one splendid line -- ''Don't just stand there, kill

something,'' he screams at his henchmen in a moment of crisis.

He is after a map tattooed on the back of a pert little girl, Enola

(Tina Majorino), who lives on the Atoll in the care of Helen, the

obligatory bird in a bikini (Jeanne Tripplehorn). The pair escape with

the Mariner when the Atoll is sacked by Deacon and the remainder of the

film is a chase movie as he pursues them.

The plot logic is faulty, and the reason why Enola draws pictures of

dry land -- some folk memory is locked inside her head -- is never

explained. How did she get it? The map on her back is also a red herring

because when they eventually find the promised land it is by chance.

Majorino is precociously pert, but Tripplehorn makes a dull, pouting

co-ed type foil and she and Costner seem to be living in different

films. Hopper, however, has a whale of time doing what he does best --

being unashamedly outrageous.

Waterworld is fun, Waterworld is lavish, Waterworld is exciting,

Waterworld is far better than Costner's detractors have suggested, but

it remains a film which cost too much. By no means a disaster, it could

still have repercussions for Costner's career.

The amazing against-all-odds success of Dances With Wolves -- seven

Academy Awards, including best director for Costner -- transformed him

into an actor/director who thought he could do no wrong, and had the

clout to be allowed to try whatever he wanted.

The $21m taken in its first weekend at the box office is hopeful, and

there is no reason why word of mouth should prove damaging to its

prospects. But a good first weekend is often due only to curiosity, and

people are certainly curious.

The comparison to draw is with Batman Forever, which took $53m.

Waterworld must earn an awful lot more of it if Kevin is ever to be home

and dry.