"Waterworld" is set on an Earth so far in the future that the ice caps have melted and the entire planet it covered with water. Um. Is there really that much water trapped in the ice caps and glaciers? I have no idea, so no comment. Somehow, humanity has still managed to survive, and they live in big floating cities, which, for some reason, remind me of space stations. Modern technology is practically nil.

The scene opens with a rather inexplicable and pointless scene. There's a guy on his boat, out on the open ocean. He urinates into some gizmo that changes it into water. He proceeds to drink some of this himself and uses the rest to water his potted plant...think bonsai fruit tree. He gets attacked by some random guys, and they steal his potted plant. (Doesn't your heart just bleed for him?) So Guy heads to the nearest floating city and uses some dirt to buy a new plant. Yes, that's right, some dirt. Apparently, dirt equals currency. Guy meets up with Woman and her 12-year-old-or-so daughter, Girl. Girl loves to draw and for some inexplicable reason has this tattoo on her back. Meanwhile, someone observes Guy buying his potted plant and decides that since this guy appears to be filthy rich (pun intended) he must know where the fabled "Dry Land" is. Yes, apparently there is still a place on earth that's above the water.

Guy is revealed as being a mutant with gills. (?) They put him in a wicker cage. Woman and Girl save him, and they all run off together. Woman tries very hard to get Gill-guy to tell her where the Dry Land is. He denies that there's dry land. Eventually it turns out that he swims to the bottom of the ocean to gather dirt into a little bag, and that's why he's rich.

Some more random bad guys (pirates or something; I was never very clear on them), still convinced that Gill-Guy knows where the Dry Land is, attack the boat. They manage to kidnap Girl, and they leave. There's another rather inexplicable scene where the head bad guy offers a cigarette to Girl. This guy must be really rich if he has enough dirt to waste some on growing tobacco. Somehow this guy comes to the conclusion that the tattoo on Girl's back is a map to the Dry Land.

Eventually, Gill-Guy and Woman rescue Girl. Someone comes up with the idea that not only is the tattoo really a map, it's a backwards map. North is South and East is West. So, what can our heros do but go find the Dry Land? They do, Gill-Guy drops Woman, Girl, and a couple other guys who have hooked up with them through the course of the movie off on the shore, and then he sails away. The End.

What makes this movie even more pathetic is the fact that at its time, it was the most expensive movie ever made. It's filled with plot holes and half-baked ideas. Still, the movie is too boring and slow and inexplicable to be very entertaining for a bad movie lover.

Rating: 2.5 turkeys.

Best line: "You're never too young to start."

Things that make you go "Huh?": Who put that stupid tattoo on the girl's back, anyway, and why didn't her own mother know what it was about?

Response From RinkWorks:

From what I remember, there's enough water in the ice caps to cover quite a bit of today's coastal areas but not nearly enough to flood the entire world. Numbers I've seen indicate the sea level would rise between 200 and 300 feet. Which is plenty to flood lots of coastal areas, but places like Boulder, Colorado -- where I live -- would still be 5100 feet above sea level. -- Dave.