WATERWORLD

Flood Omens

released 21 JaNUary 1995 | 12 | Blu-ray

Director Kevin reynolds Cast Kevin Costner, dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino

Cinema’s ultimate global warming parable is nowhere near the disaster everyone predicted when the blockbuster went over budget to a headline-grabbing degree. Instead it’s more Mad Max: The Sea Warrior, as Kevin Costner’s grumpy Mariner makes his way through a flooded future Earth where “dry land” is now a myth.

The story’s a little soggy, with Dennis Hopper’s oil tankerdwelling “Smokers” chasing the “good guys” across the open seas, while Costner’s Mariner is a miserable, uncharismatic lead. It is, however, a triumph of worldbuilding, both for its spectacular set-pieces and the adaptation of 20th century tech in a dying society. Given that attention to detail, it’s bizarre the filmmakers took the silly move of giving the Mariner webbed feet and gills – it’s one push of credibility too far.

Extras The big selling point on this three-disc Blu-ray limited edition is two extra versions of the movie, which restore loads of footage excised when director Kevin Reynolds left during the edit – a US TV cut (that loses the swears and the Mariner’s wee) and the longer but less prudish “Ulysses” cut. Both add character beats, but slow the pace to a leisurely cruise.

You also get “Maelstrom” (102 minutes), an exhaustive new documentary where crew go into depth on the challenging shoot, without skirting difficult topics like Reynolds’s departure; a piece on ecologically-themed end-of-theworld movies (22 minutes); archive featurette “Dances With Waves” (nine minutes); plus galleries and trailers. The set also comes with six postcards, a poster and a 60-page book. Richard Edwards

The scene of the Mariner taking Helen to a sunken Denver was partly filmed in the big pools NASA uses to train astronauts.

Costner is a miserable, uncharismatic lead