Chases, sea battles, an air attack (Check out the more famous half of Tenacious D playing a pilot.), and Costner, one of the few action heroes then or now able to stand tall amidst the mayhem and register as heroic, one man against the ugly edges of what’s left of mankind. What’s still glorious about the film 26 years after its release are its action beats - as thrilling as anything ever shot at sea. “Well,” he chuckled, “I could’ve told them. He was making a farewell tour of “An Evening With Gregory Peck,” and I mentioned the film in light of Peck’s own experiences making “Moby Dick” at sea with John Huston in the ’50s. I interviewed the late Gregory Peck just as this was about to come out. But even back then, I thought this was a stitch. Rewatching it, you don’t have to consider that. Every review brought that up, including mine, filed several newspapers ago and thus lost. Tina Majorino and Jeanne Tripplehorn almost drowned early in the shoot when the stunt trimaran they were on sank. It was a troubled production, way over budget. “You know, I thought you were stupid, friend. The biggest “boat” of all? It’s home to the “smokers,” jetski goons led by the one-eyed Deacon, played by Dennis Hopper as if this would be the last time he’d ever get to go this crazy on celluloid. He’s the Mariner, a hero with an anti-social attitude, a bitching trimaran and uh gills in a future where climate change (this came out in 1995) has flooded the planet and left its survivors floating around on surviving boats (Fiberglass, man, even the apocalypse can’t kill it.) and pontoon atoll villages. Maybe that’s going a bit far, but revisiting this film, which I found fun and often thrilling upon its initial release, is a reminder of what epic movies used to look like, what real ambition could be in an action film and Lord Almighty, was Kevin Costner the Douglas Fairbanks of his day, or what? A man before the mast, because we all look more macho on a sailboat. Is the world rediscovering a lost masterpiece as it flocks (via Netflix) back to “Waterworld?”