Yes, yes, yes. I finally caved and saw Waterworld. There was just too much dern hype not to finally give in and shell out the dough to witness the almighty Kevin Costner traipsing around the set of the most expensive movie to date.

And I guess it’s safe to say that it doesn’t live up to the publicity. (What possibly could?) But the whole premise is fascinating: it’s the futuristic tale of a world where the polar ice caps have melted, leaving water, water everywhere and a myth about dry land.

Kevin Costner plays the Mariner (ooh, a major Samuel Taylor Coleridge reference, no?), a lone, rebel-scavenger-type dude who, by the laws of Darwin, has developed gills and webbed feet.

He escapes capture from a settlement of people afraid of “the mutant” and manages to take a woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and child (Tina Majorino) with him. Not that he’s fond of either women or children, as we discover throughout the course of the film. It was more like a mutual rescue.

The Mariner is on a quest to find the legendary Dry Land. He has some mean company, though, in the form of Smokers, a band of cigarette-wielding terrorists led by the Deacon (Dennis Hopper).

Okay. Let me just say that if I had $175 million, I would not spend it making this movie. With that out of the way, I will admit that the whole storyline of Waterworld is incredibly interesting. The camerawork, especially underwater, pounds The Abyss into the Mariana Trench.

But remember: this is Kevin Costner. Mr. Lack-of-Emotion. Mr. Can’t-Smile. Mr. Two-and-a-Half-Hour-Movie. Maybe it worked in Dances with Wolves, but I ain’t impressed here and now.

I daresay the highlight of the film was little Enola, the kid who happens to have a map to dry land tattooed on her back. What a brave smart-ass! And not in a “Diff’rent Strokes” kind of way. She was the lighthouse in an otherwise foggy film.

Century Cinema * 7:00 & 9:40