15 Critically Mauled Movies (That Aren't Actually That Bad)
11. Waterworld
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 42%
Consensus: "Though it suffered from toxic buzz at the time of its release, Waterworld is ultimately an ambitious misfire: an extravagant sci-fi flick with some decent moments and a lot of silly ones."
Waterworld, with its ludicrous budget and even more ludicrous production troubles, seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. To the surprise of no-one, it bombed and critics tore it asunder. Now, more than twenty years on, we can look upon it fairly and... it's actually OK.
It's not great by any means and it's undeniably silly, but then again, in a film starring a human/fish mutant with gills behind his ears that is introduced drinking his own urine, what did you expect?
The central apocalyptic premise is thought-provoking, the set-pieces are pretty good and the plot itself is reasonably interesting. It is wildly uneven and overall something of a misfire, but compared to the colossal turkey the reviewers of the time promised us, what we got is actually not such a bad apocalyptic tale. It also spawned a great stunt show at Universal Studios, so there's that too.
The production of Waterworld absolutely sucked, but the film itself ultimately didn't.