Titanic 1997 Review
"It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was."
-Gloria Stuart "Titanic"
and so do we the audience, sinking into our chairs with the ungodly length of this film…3…f*cking…hours…geez Cameron, at least "Avatar" was 30 minutes shorter in comparison to this flick.
Being that April 14th 1912 is the day the infamous Titanic hit and iceberg and sank into the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly 1,500 people died and has since been called one of the worst maritime disasters to have ever occurred. Since it's sinking 100 years ago, there have several movies about the famous disaster; a german silent film called "In Nacht und Eis", a 1953 film that starred Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, a 1964 musical that starred Debbie Reynolds in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", two godawful animated films that are no strangers to the heated rants by The Nostalgia Critic, a direct-to-DVD "sequel" called "Titanic II" created by the notorious mockbuster studio The Asylum but the one adaptation that everyone remembers and knows about is the James Cameron Academy Award-winning blockbuster "Titanic." So, to give some form of recognition for the numerous people who died 100 years ago, here is a review of the classic film.
Story: One has to wonder going into this film for the first time, how can you make a compelling movie when we already know what's going to happen? There's really no suspense in watching a movie about something that we've learned since grade school that there was a ship that sunk in the Atlantic and because there have been books and movies before about the Titanic, there's really no surprise or shock when we as an audience see a ship sinking. Cameron works around that by including a love story that goes over the concepts of social class with two people who come from the ends of the social spectrum and managed to give the middle finger to anyone who should say so otherwise. This comes as a problem for me, think of it like this, if you have this on DVD or VHS, notice how there are two DVDs (or VHS tapes) in the case, the film is split into 2 parts. The first disc, and first half of the movie, is pretty much a romantic drama, using the characters to hook us in and keep us invested with their love. The second half, disc 2, is pretty much the disaster movie section of the film and it's here that the special effects are a showcase. You could argue that this one movie is just Cameron's excuse to roll in a Romance film and a Disaster movie, but there is a market for both these genres and to combine the two to create this is reaching out to appeal to both fans of the genre.
However, the romantic angle comes off as a little hammy to me and the theme of social class by showing how boring the upper class is compared to the lower class have rubbed people in the wrong direction (a family member of mine knows one of the writes for the show Family Guy and they have described that they hate this scene. You know the one I'm talking about). Because of this, the film feels a little lopsided and uneven and the romance carried into the disaster movie part of the film just feels standard rather than strong.
Characters: Do note that I am counting "Avatar" when I say this but James Cameron can write people well in his films. Even if some of them are cliched, Cameron has a way of writing minor characters well enough so that you hook onto them and are given time to hook onto them and to know their personalities and care to remember their names. The best example that comes to mind is "Aliens" where Cameron gives us a band of mercenaries who are puts in the movie to be body bags for the aliens to kill off and so their deaths shouldn't really mean much and yet each one is given a name, a personality and feel integral to the overall plot and when they are killed, you feel sad to have lost such an interesting character, especially Hudson ("Game over man! Game over!") The same can be said for Titanic, even though there are over 2,000 people onboard this ship, Cameron chooses a select few for us to grab ahold of and to follow them until they survive or they go down with the ship as well.
Acting is the strong suit in this film with fantastic acting from it's supporting cast (though admittedly, Billy Zane could take some subtlety pills for his acting performance) and even the lead actors, Leo and Kate, manage to at least give justice to what Cameron wrote. They do what the script calls them to do and they at least didn't half-ass their performances but I can't help but find that Leo's character is just too…well, perfect for women. Let's face it, he's got the looks, he's an artist so he's got to be open and sensitive but tough and strong to protect the girl. I dunno, just something about his character rubbed me the wrong way. But still, the characters are compelling enough to keep you going through the movie as it progresses, which is good enough.
Production: If there is one thing that James Cameron is good at doing, it's making money. Sh*tloads of it and the 1990's was no exception, from "Terminator 2" to "True Lies", Cameron was making money by the boatloads (no pun intended). But Cameron was highly insistent that in creating the sets of the Titanic, it would have to look like the Titanic from it's original designs down to the lamps, the rugs, the tables to even the dishware. Such dedication to recreating the feel of being on the Titanic cast Cameron millions not only from Paramount but from 20th Century Fox, because of this, many critics considered that this was going to be the biggest flop of the century and this would not only destroy Cameron's career but it would also force Paramount to go bankrupt and they would be ruined. Thankfully, Cameron's dedication and his driving passion allowed him to utilize the still relatively new CGI format to create certain shots of the Titanic as it would sink as well as the hundreds of people that would be swimming in the water and falling off the ship as it would sink. That said, the production value of "Titanic" is very strong and Cameron's passion for the details to make the Titanic look as it did back in 1912 is highly appreciated. The music is also good, but I can't help but feel that certain uses of the choir sound like Horner just using his keyboard on the "Choir" setting and just pushing the keys for the notes, the instrumentation used for the scenes and for the intense moments are fitting, the music choices such as "Ne'er My God I Am To Thee" is perfectly fitting and work with the shots shown and the less said about the Celine Dion song, the better, thank you very much.
Bottom Line: It's kinda hard to really say anything about his film that hasn't already been said. To me, I can't help but feel that the love story is really distracting compared to the large disaster movie that the sinking of the Titanic is but I just sat back, just let all the cliches and flaws pass me by and I just had a go with what was presented. Surprisingly after 15 years, the film still holds up, but for me, not so much as a love story, that alone just gets a "meh" response out of me but seeing the attention to detail done in on the ship as it sank and chuckling at the outdated CGi people falling off the ship and swimming in the water brought me back to my childhood when my parents showed me this movie. It has it's problems with pacing and some of the characters could be fleshed out better, but it's still a strong film where you can see a lot of passion was put into making it.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized that passion in 1997 and "Titanic" became one of the three rare movies to ever receive over 10 Academy Awards, along with "Ben-Hur" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and with Cameron recently re-releasing it in 3D, it seems no matter the age, this film will bring many families to sit on the couch and, just like Cameron's nut worth, it will continue to go on, just like our hearts.
Final Rating: 4/5
Until next time, I'll continue to stoke the fires for when we burn through celluloid.
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