(Second viewing, On DVD, August 2017) I’ve grown soft on some of the movies I loved to dislike back in the nineties (see: Independence Day), but as it turns out, Waterworld is just as dumb now than it was back then. From the first moments, the idiocies accumulate quickly, and it’s hard to remain immersed in a Science Fiction movie when you keep muttering “no, no, that’s just stupid” every thirty seconds or so. Soaked dystopia Waterworld desperately tries to make audiences believe in a world entirely covered with water, in factions repeatedly meeting on a featureless ocean, in scarce resources being expended wildly, in … oh, forget it. But there’s more to the annoyance than nitpicking the film to death: it really doesn’t help that Waterworld’s action sequences are so repetitive, either taking place on water or in rusted-out low-imagination post-apocalyptic environments. The film is dull and blurs in trying to recall specific moments. Costner himself is almost a caricature of his own stoic persona, and there’s added irony in contemplating that the film largely takes place on a sea over the American west … that’s right: Westworld is another Costner western. If the film does show most of its then-record breaking budget on the screen, it’s not particularly exciting nor engaging. Sure, Jeanne Tripplehorn is always interesting and sure, it’s OK to see Dennis Hopper ham it up as a villain made to scare kids but … really? Now that I’ve watched Waterworld again, I’m ready to go another twenty years (or more) not thinking about it.