Product Details

• Actors: Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Dennis Hopper, Tina Majorino, Chaim Girafi
• Directors: Kevin Costner, Kevin Reynolds
• Writers: David Twohy, Peter Rader
• Producers: Andrew Licht, Charles Gordon, David Fulton, Gene Levy
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: July 9, 1996
• Run Time: 135 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (254 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303909884
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,209 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Let's be honest: this 1995 epic isn't nearly as bad as its negative publicity led us to expect. At the time it was the most expensive Hollywood production in history (it had a Titanic-sized $200 million budget), and the film arrived in theaters with so much controversy and negative gossip that it was an easy target for ridicule. The movie itself, a flawed but enjoyable post-apocalypse thriller, deserves better. Waterworld stars Kevin Costner as the Mariner, a lone maverick with gills and webbed feet who navigates the endless seas of Earth after the complete melting of the polar ice caps. The Mariner has been caged like a criminal when he's freed by Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and enlisted to help her and a young girl (Tina Majorino) escape from the Smokers, a group of renegade terrorists led by Dennis Hopper in yet another memorably villainous role. It is too bad the predictable script isn't more intelligent, but as a companion piece to The Road Warrior, this seafaring stunt-fest is adequately impressive. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

Kevin Costner plays the Mariner-part man, part fish, and the unofficial Prince of Mutants-in a post-apocalyptic action picture of the "Mad Max" type. Lurking beneath its conventional adventure-movie surface is a bizarre environmental parable, in which Costner's rugged, ecologically correct loner battles a scurvy bunch of pirates called Smokers, who smoke cigarettes, drink Jack Daniel's, and burn fossil fuels. None of the filmmakers appear to have realized that spending a fortune to make a picture that condemns excessive consumption and preaches the wise use of resources might seem a bit disingenuous. What's really propelling the movie is the vanity of its star (who is also one of the producers); at the end, Costner gives himself the most florid and protracted action-hero apotheosis since the conclusion of "Shane." With Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, and Dennis Hopper. Directed by Kevin Reynolds, from a screenplay credited to Peter Rader and David Twohy. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars EXTENDED EDITION IS ABC CUT!!, November 4, 2008

By 

Simon Gilmore "symetri" (Fort Worth, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waterworld (2-Disc Extended Edition) (DVD)

A few years after Waterworld was released on video ABC aired an extended cut on public television. I have been waiting for a long time for the extended edition to be released and now it finally has been. While watching it I relied something that shocked me that is the ABC version, the cussing is gone, the violence is soften and some scenes have been cut out, and no Helen bare back shot. Even some of the sound effects and music has been changed. After doing more research I found this to be true. Instead of revising a 'true' extended edition Universal just put the ABC version on here (without commercials of course) and just added a 5.1 soundtrack to it. What a waste of money this was/is. I guess that's why it is only 15 bucks, I would have gladly spent 50 bucks for an unedited extended cut.

70 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatist movie that never was, August 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Waterworld [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Waterworld is the perfect example of a director's dream that was flushed down the toilet. It had the capability to be the best movie of all time, but it was killed by a bad editing staff. I'm sure most people have never seen it, but there is another version of WaterWorld that was never released for the public, except through an airing on ABC in 1998. The original cut for the movie is 4 and a half hours long, and it would have been longer. There was a slave trading camp scene that was never shot because the set was sunk by a storm. The editing crew decided that no body would want to sit in a theater for 4.5 hour, so they cut out 2 hours of dialog. Thats 2 hours of story sent to the trash. I think that it was originally planned to release the full length version, but the idea was dropped when it bombed at the box-office. This is one truely amasing movie, that had the makings to be a modern epic. All the sets actually were floating on water, and all the mariner's boat footage was shot at sea. The story was inspiring, and the plot made you open your eyes to what is happening in our world. At 4.5 hours, a budget of $150 mil, and over 5000 extras, it was a movie of power and prestige. Too bad no one will ever know.

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Some Would Lead You to Believe, June 26, 2005

By 

Monkdude (Hampton, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waterworld (DVD)

First off, I love the premise of the film and the musical score by James Newton Howard. It took me about two complete watches until I finally began to enjoy it. I liked how they used very little special effects and actually built everything you see on the water. The lack of CGI sets, vehicles and explosions are what caused Waterworld to be one the most expensive films ever made. Almost everything on screen was built by man, which is great in a world full of digital effects taking over the story in most flicks. This is one that I watch at least twice a year and it is worthy of any DVD collection.