Waterworld

BUY IT	RENT IT

General		Extras
Category	Post-Apocalyptic	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1995	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	129:38 minutes	Other Extras	Production Notes Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (68:16)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Kevin Reynolds
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Kevin Costner Dennis Hopper Jeanne Tripplehorn Tina Majorino Michael Jeter
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	James Newton Howard

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.0
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages Region 4	English (Dolby Digital 5.0)
		Soundtrack Languages Region 2	English (Dolby Digital 5.0) German (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) French (Dolby Digital 5.0) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles Region 4	English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	Yes
Subtitles Region 2	English for the Hearing Impaired Portuguese Danish Finnish Polish Dutch Swedish Norwegian Czech French

    Waterworld is set in the future, when the polar ice caps have melted, and dry land is but a myth. Kevin Costner is an unnamed Mariner, going about his own business until an unfortunate series of events, after which he finds himself a prisoner on a floating man-made island. The island is attacked and Kevin is almost killed. He is saved at the last minute by a woman, Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her smart-mouthed daughter, Enola (Tina Majorino). The price? Helen and Enola want to be taken to the mythical dry land which they believe the Mariner knows the location of. Unbeknownst to the Mariner, Enola has a map tattooed onto her back which allegedly shows the location of dry land, and hence Enola is in great demand. The band of pirates that attacked the island now come after Enola, led by Deacon (Dennis Hopper).

    The remainder of the movie focuses on the capture and recapture of Enola and on the search for dry land.

    The movie almost works, but not quite. There are problems with the story. Firstly, there are far too many amazing and lucky coincidences for my liking. Secondly, there are far too many improbable stunts. Thirdly, I could never understand why the Mariner didn't just kill Helen and Enola early on in the piece - there was plenty of just cause for doing so, and the Mariner was portrayed as quite a ruthless character who thought nothing of killing. Fourthly, there was no chemistry between the leads.

    Add to this equation some very fake and cheesy looking CGI effects, and the net result is a movie that could have been great, but instead was only very pedestrian.

Video

    This is a magnificent transfer, and is of reference quality.

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear throughout. Water, in particular, was well-encoded and without any visible artefacting, and water is notorious for being difficult to MPEG encode because of the high degree of movement it exhibits between images. Shadow detail was excellent and there was no low level noise.

    The colours were marginally more muted than they perhaps could have been, but this is being very picky indeed. They remained consistent throughout the entire transfer.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. There were no film-to-video artefacts seen. Film artefacts were exceedingly rare.

    Subtitles can be selected from either the remote control or from the menu. The main menu selections are dependent on which Region the DVD player is set to, whereas the remote control allows selection of all the subtitles no matter what Region the DVD player is set to - clearly a slight authoring glitch which actually makes the disc easier to use.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed within Chapter 6, at 68:16. This is mildly disruptive.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on this DVD; English Dolby Digital 5.0, German Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded, Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded, French Dolby Digital 5.0, and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack. There is no .1 track encoded onto this disc. This is common to all versions of this disc in all regions.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The score by James Newton Howard is another superlative effort on his part. The music sets just the right mood for the movie at all times.

    The surround channels were used superbly throughout this movie, both for the action sequences, and also during the non-action sequences, when ambience, music and special effects were mixed aggressively thoughout the entire soundfield. The soundtrack was very immersive and gave a great sense of being out there on the water, with water surrounding you on all sides. The entire soundfield was active throughout pretty much the entire movie, rather than just coming in to play for the action sequences.

    The .1 channel was not encoded, but a reasonable amount of bass was present in the other channels during the action sequences. It would have been even better, however, if some additional bottom end was included via the .1 channel. I believe that the movie was released theatrically with a 5.0 mix rather than a 5.1 mix, so this DVD is true to the original soundtrack.

What's Missing / What's Extra

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Production Notes

Cast & Crew Biographies

    The video quality is of reference quality.

    The audio quality is excellent, despite the lack of a .1 channel.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
28th July 1999