Parents' Guide to

Waterworld

By Charles Cassady Jr., Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Seagoing sci-fi swashbuckler fun despite bad reputation.

Movie PG-13 1995 112 minutes
Waterworld Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 14+

Based on 2 parent reviews

age 14+

Don't listen to the bad reputation. It's actually really good!

Waterworld is an amazingly entertaining film, with epic and stunning action sequences. Waterworld stars Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, and Dennis Hopper. They all act amazingly in this film. I also love the astonishing sets they built for the film like, the Atoll. Waterworld is an awesome and breathtaking film. Violence 3/5- Lots of explosions, gun-play, punching, kicking, knives, and people and boats are shot with spears. The Deacon loses his eye in a huge explosion (we only see the bloody eye socket.) The Mariner almost drowns in human sludge. Language 3/5- frequent use of mild profanity one F-bomb. Sexy Stuff 2/5- Female rear nudity. Drinking Drugs and Smoking 2/5- The Smokers smoke a lot. Overall the film would probably be okay for 14+.
1 person found this helpful.
age 13+

An average action flick with a unique premise

Waterworld isn't too bad, but it isn't anything spectacular either. They spent an awful lot of money on a film that just didn't get where it was trying to go.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2):
Kids say (5):

Despite its bad rap, WATERWORLD does offer solid entertainment (and it did find minor box-office success). It's got fun swashbuckling and cool low-tech nautical gadgets and imaginative production design that is indeed otherworldly. Dennis Hopper does an amusingly comic-scary villain -- even if his bloody eye socket is one of several gross-out moments for kid and adult viewers. Only as it slackens toward the end (and piles on the bad-science snafus) does the movie begin to feel as ponderous and self-absorbed as critics complained. It helps if one hasn't recently seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which was a too-obvious inspiration.

Like the 1963 Cleopatra, this ecologically-tacking sci-fi flick become a symbol of Tinseltown waste and epic ego, as the original director left the production and the budget ballooned way over estimates. Thanks to all the gossip the film was labeled a bomb by many before it had even opened.

Movie Details

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