The most expensive film ever made at the time, Waterworld lives in the same rarified air as Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate, except that it was one of the highest grossing films of 1995.

The thing is, while it cost $175 million, it made back $264.2 million worldwide, as well as having a profitable video and cable release. It’s still making money, because the stunt show based on the movie, Waterworld: A Live Sea War Spectacular, is still running at Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Beijing 27 years after the movie was released.

Writer Peter Rader came up with the idea for Waterworld during a conversation with producer Brad Krevoy literally as a Mad Max rip-off. He probably also read the comic Freakwave by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy*, which had been nearly optioned as a movie. Co-writer David Twohy even outright said that he was inspired by The Road Warrior and the filmmakers hired that movie’s director of photography, Dean Semler, for this film.

Before filming began, Steven Spielberg warned star Kevin Costner and director Kevin Reynolds not to film on open water, a lesson he learned from Jaws. They didn’t listen and watched the set sink. And hey, Reynolds quit before the movie was done because he and Costner fought so much.

So what did this all lead to?

Waterworld is way better than it’s been said to be. It is, quite literally, Mad Maxon jet skis. Costner is the web-footed Mariner, a man who recycles his own urine as drinking water because since the polar ice caps melted, the drinking water is quite limited and the Earth is just plain filled with water. He saves Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and a kid named Enola (Tina Majorino), protecting them from The Deacon, a one-eyed Dennis Hopper, and then uses the map on Enola’s back to find the only dry land on Earth, which is the top of Mount Everest.

It just takes two hours and fifteen minutes** to get there.

*Ironically, McCarthy would later co-write Mad Max: Fury Road.

**The Costner cut is three hours long.

The three disc limited edition Arrow 4K UHD release of Waterworld has everything you ever wanted about this film.

There are three cuts of the film newly restored from original film elements by Arrow Films, six collector’s postcards, a double-sided fold-out poster and a limited edition 60-page perfect bound book featuring writing on the film by David J. Moore and Daniel Griffith, and archival articles, as well as a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper.

The theatrical cut disc comes with the following extras: Maelstrom: The Odyssey of Waterworld, a feature-length making-of documentary including extensive cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage; Dances With Waves, an original archival featurette capturing the film’s production; Global Warnings, in which film critic Glenn Kenny explores the subgenre of ecologically themed end-of-the-world films; a production and promotional still gallery; a visual effects still gallery; original trailers and TV spots.

You also get the TV cut and the extended European Ulysses cut, which includes previously censored shots and dialogue.

If you love Waterworld, you need this. Get it now from MVD.

Let’s be straight: I could type out the entire script of this movie by memory. That’s how important this movie was to a 23-year-old me. I even worked in an ad agency inside a mall and often felt like the characters in this, walking the shops and stores of Station Square with no shopping agenda. Even now, 28 years later, I can quote from this movie at any time and so much of it is part of my vocabulary.

I was probably one of the few people back then who loved it, because it bombed and writer and director Kevin Smith apologized for the movie at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Today, as Smith says on the intro to the Arrow blu ray, this movie has aged into being seen as a success.

This movie is all about the adventures of T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) and Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) as they navigate the Eden Prairie Center Mall — actually in Minnesota*, but supposedly New Jersey — and attempt to get over the loss of their respective girlfriends, Brandi Svenning (Claire Forlani) and Rene Mosier (Shannen Doherty). Along the way, they interact with Jay and Silent Bob, meet Stan Lee and even go to the dirt mall.

That’s an oversimplification of a movie that once — and yes, still — meant so much to me. What comic book geek doesn’t see themselves as Brodie, a man who can somehow win over Doherty despite only caring about Superman being able to shoot semen like a shotgun and playing as Hartford on his Genesis? Even all these years later, I see him as one of the coolest characters in the movies of my youth and have followed Jason Lee through so many characters as a result.

From Michael Rooker trying to hunt down Brodie — and having to eat a curious pretzel — to the gameshow Truth or Date being made at “their mall” and Priscilla Barnes as a multi-nipple having fortune teller, there are so many moments in this movie that I remember and instantly laugh about. It also sets up Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back back as Suzanne the orangutan makes her first appearance.

While Jay and Silent Bob Reboot felt like a massive misfire, I’m happy to see that this movie has lost none of its fun and good feelings. Sometimes, as Smith says, things just age well.

Sadly, the malls we once haunted are all gone. Even the one I worked at is now all office spaces and tourist restaurants. We go there every once in a while for fondue. But all I can see is when it was once filled with people like me, those with no set shopping agenda.

*Fargo was being filmed in the same town at the same time.

The Arrow re-release of this movie comes with so much, starting with a 4K restoration by Arrow Films of both the Theatrical and Extended cuts of the film, approved by director Kevin Smith and cinematographer David Klein. There’s also audio commentary with Smith, producer Scott Mosier, archivist Vincent Pereira and actors Jason Lee, Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes.

Plus, you get an introduction to the film by Smith, an interview with the director, a tribute to producer Him jacks, interviews with Mewes and cinematographer David Klein, an animated making-of documentary featuring Minnesota crew members who worked on the film, deleted scenes, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews on set, an archival making of featurette, a Q&A with Smith, the music video for “Build Me Up Buttercup,” a still gallery, dailies, a theatrical trailer, Easter eggs and a press kit for the soundtrack.

It all comes in an amazing package that has an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp, a fold-out poster featuring replica blueprints for Operation Drive-by and Operation Dark Knight, and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Robert Sammelin.

Ah, the 90s. A time when Blockbuster Video had enough power that it could ask Universal for a sequel to Darkman, which did well at theaters. But not well enough for a theatrical sequel. Renaissance Pictures was trying to sell Fox on a series, bringing back Larry Drake as bad guy Robert G. Durant. They passed and what was filmed ended up the first of two direct-to-video sequels.

Half of the budget for the Darkman sequels came from Universal’s television division, while the rest came from its home video division. This is also how The Birds II and Psycho IV were made.

In 1998, Sam Raimi’s Renaissance Pictures — now Raimi Pictures — was producing tons of stuff, like M.A.N.T.I.S. (the series Fox did buy), American Gothic, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. They also made Hard Target, which is where Arnold Vosloo was found to take over the lead. Another of their regulars, Renee O’Connor — who played Deianeira on Hercules and Gabrielle on Xena — also is in this.

Peyton Westlake is still Darkman, stealing from the criminals he fights and using the money to pay for his synthetic skin experiments while Durant awakens from a coma and goes right back into crime, breaking Dr. Alfred Hathaway (Lawrence Dane) out of prison. Now he’s selling particle beam weapons on the black market. His need for more energy to make these weapons causes him to kill Westlake’s new skin creation partner, Dr. David Brinkman (Jesse Collins), and Darkman instantly knows his enemy has come back when he notices that the dead scientist is missing a finger. Durant follows that evil up by killing off a reporter, Jill Randall (Kim Delaney) that Darkman had grown to respect.

Now, our hero must save the sister of Hathaway (O’Connor) from Durant and get his revenge.

Bradford May was the director of photography of The Monster Squad and spent a lot of his directing career in TV. His work here is good, but he’s also following Sam Raimi. The script was written by Robert Eisele, Lawrence Hertzog (who wrote a few of the Hart to Hart TV movies) and Steven McKay (Assault On Devil’s Island, Hard to Kill). Again, it’s fine, but following the original is a hard act.