Titanic

The following review may explain why I am currently single. It is not recommended for total wusses. Viewer discretion advised.

I was going to save this review for later on, but screw it, Cameron insists on exploiting the hell out of it, so I can’t wait any longer. This is my review of Titanic. I normally don’t cry during movies, but this is one of those incidents where I came darn close. And no, it was not because I found Jack’s death so emotional, it was because I was laughing at James Cameron’s childish efforts to force an emotional response out of me. There was even a scene where I actually laughed and felt like I was supposed to laugh, but I’ll save that for later. Heck, you might even know the scene that I am talking about.

Unlike my Boondock Saints review where I listed what I liked, I’m not going to waste time trying to give this movie credit. We’re going right on to what I didn’t like. For one thing, the love-triangle plot was about as clichéd as you can get in a movie. We all know how it goes: We have a woman who is a free spirit and much more bright than people give her credit who is engaged to a wealthy douche bag with no redeeming value, other than the fact that he is handsome and… that’s about it, we pretty much hate this guy. He is only marrying her so he can have a trophy wife, and the girl’s mother is pressuring her to go through with the marriage because they are suffering from a crippling financial crisis and this marriage will save them. Enter generic romantic hero, who typically has a face that was carved by angels, is skint broke, but is up beat and has a very positive out look on life despite his staggering misfortune. I’ll admit that this kind of character is a cliché that I don’t really mind, it’s just that it has been done to death, and… there is another thing that really bothers me about this movie, but I’ll get to it later. 

The other thing that bothers me about this are all of the British people that are in this. Virtually every British person that appears in this movie has a comically over-the-top accent and an unbelievably snooty personality. They’re the kind of person that you would expect to be in a Saturday Night Live skit or a Monty Python episode. In fact, I think the Monty Python troupe actually acted like that in some of their skits. And just like this movie, it would involve them belittling somebody from a lower social class. It’s one thing when your characters are hilariously over the top, but when somebody can make a case that you copy and pasted your character (who was meant to be in an awe-inspiring drama) from a comedy skit written by a group of guys renowned for being as silly as possible, that’s pretty bad.

Now onto those emotions that I was supposed to be feeling. I don’t want you to think that I think the real life tragedy of the Titanic is something to be laughed at, because I don’t. But when somebody tries to exploit it for money, fame, money, Oscars and well, money, you are walking around with a BIG target on your back. A target that I will be more than happy to shoot at with a .50 cal. It’s easy to get your audience all teary-eyed when you combine a love story with a historical tragedy. But dude, you are taking the easiest route when you go that way. You could have written this movie about the holocaust and it would have been the same movie. In fact, I'm betting that’s how it went down. This was supposed to be a Holocaust drama but then decided to put it on the Titanic.  In fact, here is a recording from James Cameron’s office the day he decided to write this masterpiece (and I’m using that term VERY loosely)

Random friend of James Cameron: Wow! Good work on True Lies Jim! That movie is a big hit

James Cameron: Ah thanks buddy! It really helps when you’re the greatest director on earth

RF: Uh… yeah. So what’s your next movie going to be? Another Terminator?

JC: No… This time, I’m going for the Oscar. I’m thinking about writing an emotional drama set during a well-known historical tragedy. Something where we can write in one of the main character’s deaths and have it tie-in with this event.

RF: Oh yeah? What were you thinking?

JC: Maybe a drama set during the Holocaust

RF: But… didn’t Stephen Spielberg already do that with Schindler’s List?

JC: Did he? I don’t know, I don’t pay attention to other people’s achievements

RF: Yeah, I think he did, got a lot of Oscars too. Best picture, best director, all of them.

JC: Well what about a ROMANCE set during the Holocaust? Maybe a jewish guy falls in love with a girl who isn’t jewish, they have a son together, and both the son and father get shipped off to a camp? The first half could be about the two of them falling in love, the second half could be about him trying to protect his son while also trying to find a way to get back to his wife. We’ll have it take place in Italy, just to shake things up.

RF: Um… I actually heard about some Italian guy that is making a movie just like that. Almost word for word.

JC: Damnit! What about a romance on… The Titanic?

And the rest is history!

-You just brought up Stephen Spielberg and Roberto Benigni. Weren’t they technically exploiting The Holocaust for personal gain?

I guess you could make that argument, but in Spielberg’s case, that argument would be kind of flimsy. Whenever he does something World War 2 related, he always goes all out when making the movie or miniseries. Even in the case of Saving Private Ryan, which wasn’t entirely based on a true story like Schindler or Band of Brothers, it was made because somebody had a story to tell, and a great one at that. The characters in them were all believable and likable and asked questions that we would have asked ourselves if we were put in there shoes. The characters in Titanic weren’t that believable at all. I already talked about the brits in the movie, as well as all of the other cliché’s that got shoved in here. I guess you could like Kathy Bates since she is the one rich person who is actually nice. But even then, when you have a movie like this, there is always a character that reaches across the table when no one else will. Again, it’s something that I don’t mind, but it’s also another part of this repeat storyline that has been done to death.

Also, I’m just going to say it, because we all know it’s true. Ladies, you only cried because it was Leo Di Caprio that died. Would you have acted that way if it was Danny Devito that drowned? Food for thought.

-So what was that scene that made you laugh so hard?

Ah yes, thank you for reminding me about that. You can call me soulless for laughing at the rest of the movie, but there is no excuse for this scene. This was at the part when the ship has been torn in half; Jack, Rose and a number of other aristocrats are hanging on for dear life. When suddenly, one poor soul looses his grip, falls to his death… only to hit one of the propellers of the boat and spin like a top the rest of the way down! What the hell was Cameron thinking when he put that in there? You could have just had him fall and it wouldn’t have made any difference! I may have had one less thing to laugh at, but that’s about it.

There is one more scene that bugs me. There was room for two people on that door! Why couldn’t they both fit on it? If only Jack had said “Hey, move over!” then they would have been fine. It’s one thing when a character’s death is necessary, like if there was nothing left for them, but nope. Not in this case. This death scene was a total waste of time and resources.

And finally, this is what really bothers me about this movie: The fact that it won Oscars. Not just one, but multiple, including Director and Picture, which I imagine only fed the director’s vast ego (I’m not making that up, he really does have a huge ego). This movie won Oscars when there were three other movies who were far more deserving of that award: LA Confidential, Good Will Hunting and As Good As it Gets. The fact that a movie with a story this simple and clichéd won so many awards and made so much money at the box office really baffles me. It’s almost like audiences are asking for more of the same. So when people continue to complain about how Hollywood is running out of ideas, all you can really say is “Hey, you’re the one that keeps paying to see it”

-So why did you decide to write this review now?

There is a bit of a story behind how I decided to write this review: I was on the Internet today, studying hard… not looking at porn or stupid videos or anything.

-Yeah… right

Hey shut up! And get out of my house! I had taken a break to visit facebook, when I saw that a friend of mine had posted a link to a video, saying it gave her goosebumps. Curious, I took a look at what it was. And lo and behold, it was a trailer for a theatrical re-release of Titanic… In 3D no less. I’m going to repeat that. A drama about a love triangle, with no action scenes, car chases or explosions, is being released in 3D. What a splendid idea! Why stop there? I also hear they plan on releasing Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and The Shawshank Redemption. All in 3D! I’m so glad this is the route movies are going! 3D for everyone! Yay!

So yeah, that’s all I have to say about this movie. If you think this is bad, wait til I review Avatar.

Yours truly,

MP