

And while that hubris can occasionally result in a great film (see: the entirety of James Cameron’s career), Waterworld was not one of those times.

Its extremely troubled production was widely reported, with several journalists criticizing the film as the worst kind of Hollywood hubris. When it hit theaters 26 years ago, Waterworld already had a number of things working against it. Somehow, the movie manages to contain all these elements and still find a way to be extremely boring. The Mariner decides to help Enola and her caretaker Helen ( Jeanne Triplehorn) find Dryland, and protect them from a gang of bloodthirsty pirates called the Smokers, one of whom is Jack Black in an airplane. Costner plays The Mariner, a drifter who encounters a young girl named Enola ( Tina Majorino) with a map to the fabled Dryland tattooed on her back. If you’ve never seen it, and why would you have, the movie takes place on Earth in the distant future, after global warming has melted the ice caps and flooded the entire planet.

The most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, Waterworld also secured the dubious distinction of becoming one of the most infamous box office failures of all time. It also saw the release of Kevin Costner’s thunderous action epic Waterworld, which somehow manages to contain the energy of all of those things I just mentioned. Simpson trial, the release of Toy Story, and the end of the Bosnian civil war. 1995 bore witness to many things – the triumphant return of the Batman, the O.J.
