The cursed movie Jack Black will defend to the death: “We crushed it, bro”
Jack Black has appeared in some pretty bad movies, and while that might be a harsh say, it’s true.
With movies like Shallow Hal and Borderlands littering his filmography, which does admittedly have some gems in it (everyone likes School of Rock, right?), Black seems a bit lost when it comes to picking movie roles.
Sometimes he strikes a perfect ten, but more often than not, he’s appearing in something rather forgettable or cheesy, with one of the most notorious entries to his career being Waterworld. Before he had gained recognition from his supporting role in High Fidelity, as well as becoming known as half of Tenacious D, Black appeared in small cameo roles in various movies, with the Kevin Costner action film being one of them.
Anyone who has seen Waterworld will know just how disastrous it was. When it was made, it became the most expensive film of all time, with around £133million funnelled into the blockbuster in the hopes of making a post-apocalyptic masterpiece. It was sadly far from being a masterpiece, although Black will adamantly defend it until the day he dies.
Directed by Kevin Reynolds, the movie was incredibly ambitious, but it ultimately didn’t have strong enough legs to stand on. Critics weren’t sold by the story, finding it as ridiculous as they did boring; moreover, it proved to be a hell of a challenge to actually bring the film to life, with the production flooded with issues, including a hurricane and tensions between the two Kevins not looking too good.
It seems like the crew ignored a lot of the advice they were given, including shooting in water, and in the end, the movie just flopped like a beached whale, and while enough people crowded around to witness the disastrous output, it wasn’t enough to make Waterworld a hit. Regardless, Black, whose small role as a pilot came rather early in his budding career as an actor, thought that it was an epic production worthy of much more praise that people just couldn’t understand.
In an interview with Newsweek, he shared how proud he was of the film: “We crushed it, bro. I’m still trying to shake it. That’s what it’s going to say on my tombstone: Jack ‘Post-Apocalyptic Seaplane Pilot’ Black,” clearly loving it enough to want to be remembered for it when he dies.
“The script was badass. It was like a wet Road Warrior. And it was shooting in Hawaii!,” Black continued, possibly blinded by working on such a big (and expensive) shoot for the first time, because Waterworld isn’t exactly a masterpiece to shout about.
Still, we all love things that we shouldn’t, and in Black’s case, it’s Waterworld. With Dennis Hopper also appearing in the movie, you’d think it would’ve turned out a bit better, but it wasn’t meant to be. Costner also retains his love of the film, though, which suggests that actually working on the movie might make you a bit more susceptible to enjoying the final product, while for the rest of us, watching it is like witnessing a sinking ship, and there’s little you can do about it.
