TITANIC
For Boredom
Rebecca Wan
Directed by James Cameron
Starring : Kate Winslet (Rose DeWitt Bukater), Leornado DiCaprio (Jack Dawson), Billy Zane (Cal Hockley), Kathy Bates (Molly Brown), Frances Fisher (Ruth DeWitt Bukater)
Running Time : 3hrs 15mins (!)
Rating : ***** out of ***** (for boredom)
Official WebSite: www.titanicmovie.com
Recommended Anti-Titanic WebSite: Titanic Rage
This Movie Is Boring
You know what? There really isn't anything else to say about this movie. It's dull, and staid, and limp; it drags its overblown butt around so long that by the time it finally gets down to showing us what we really want to see, we're asleep. TITANIC could very well be the most bloody boring dreck to be found this side of two hundred million dollars. Why? Because, as is manifested repeatedly in its title song, its male lead, and its amazingly trite storyline, nothing in TITANIC is worth remembering. TITANIC commits a worse crime than the kind we've come to expect of high-budget action and special-effects films in this day and age: it dumps good, old-fashioned instant-gratification, in-your-face specatacle in favour of -- yeeeesh -- a "story."
This is the most obvious thing about TITANIC. Never mind the contrived screenplay (it was written by James Cameron for goodness sake, did anyone expect Oscar Wilde?), the uninspiring leads, and the fact that this film loudly and ungracefully promulgates the crass all-the-bad-guys-are-rich-and-have-funny-accents-and-all-the-good-guys-are-American-and-at-least-partially-blonde ideology that has demarcated every merchandised blockbuster to come out of Hollywood since STAR WARS. Or wait, maybe it's because of all these things, and the fact that James Cameron seems to think he can actually write dialogue for people who don't, as a rule, sport guns from their hips, and run about with torn clothing clinging to their limbs, and blowing things up, that this movie is simply the most bloody fucking boring creation in existence.
I know what you're going to say. What about opera (in general)? What about Whitney Houston songs (which run a close second to Celine Dion songs), Marcel Proust and FUNNY GIRL? Yes yes, all boring creations, but all redeemed in some way. And yes I know, TITANIC has this big boat scene, and the boat sinks, and it looks like it really was the Titanic when it sank! That ought to be redeeming enough, and why not? I *wanted* to see the boat sink. I went *to* see the boat sink (it took me four bloody weeks but I worked up to it, didn't I?). But what did I get? Two pain-filled hours of stultifyingly banal setup, none of which was the least bit convincing, let alone palatable.
Essentially, this is the gist: Leonardo DiCaprio is some sort of life-loving, capricious, ingenuous Poor Guy (everyone is a Type on the TITANIC). He falls in love with Kate Winslet, an upper-class Repressed Princess who eventually learns to Follow Her Heart and go tap-dancing with DiCaprio amongst rowdy third-class Irish bagpipers. In doing this, she forsakes the Evil, Plotting Fiance, played
by Billy Zane, who in addition to committing crimes like disliking Leonardo because he is a Third Class Passenger, shows himself to be completely in ignorance of the genius of Picasso and the works of Freud. But she also leaves All That Billy Zane Stands For, which includes stifling society chit-chat, marriage for money and status, and gosh darnit, why, just Freedom In General!
As boring as the story already sounds, it is further strangled by a script that chokes on insipidity and moronic lines. Pre-Titanic publicity had Cameron doing the talk-show circuit touting the "love story" bit of of TITANIC; he insisted, on Larry King and Oprah, that it's the relationship between Rose and Jack (WInslet's and DiCaprio's characters) that matters. But instead of a half-half split between "love story" and "incredible sinking boat scene," the actual division is two hours worth of drippy Edwardian princess-and-frog business, and the remaining hour-and-a-quarter devoted to the things-smashing-and-people-dying gala that everybody *really* wants to see.
But why two hours, two whole hours of cretinous character and story development that ultimately are as moving as a poem about cement? The tag line on some TITANIC posters is "nothing on earth could keep them apart." You wonder what on earth keeps them together. Leonardo and Kate are supposed to be around the same age (Kate's character is said to be twenty-one), but she looks much older than him, almost maternal. Nothing wrong with that, and if there was even the tiniest speck of chemistry between them, perhaps TITANIC would have worked. But as they commit their scandalous cross-class courtship, running from irate waitors and threatening manservants, they look like a pair of naughty, but benign, siblings gambolling on deck. Winslet is semi-interesting as the Woman Trapped In The System, but has nothing of the wistful resignation found in Helena Bonham-Carter's morally wrought performance in THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, or even Michelle Pfeiffer's desperate Ellen Olenska in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. Both are worthier heroines of a similar period who conveyed a stronger sense of being smothered by societal codes. DiCaprio is slightly more intriguing; all grungy and zesty, he overdoeses on his overgrown ragmuffin-turned-gentleman-tramp gig and seems to scour the gargantum ship hoping to find and rejoin the cast of OLIVER! It doesn't help that Billy Zane turns his forboding role into a cartoon Disney villain, and that everyone else on the Titanic acts like they're caricatures from a Sheridan play. By the time the iceberg was struck and the water started leaking into the interiors (two hours into the movie, folks!) TITANIC was already too far into the water to hold this viewer's attention.
Maybe the reason this movie is doing so well is because prolonged boredom caused its viewers to black out the first two hours and remember only the fact that it had a fantastic sinking boat scene. Maybe it's just that the slightest hint of Leonardo DiCaprio is enough for a movie to do fabulously well, I understand that he's something of a hearthrob. Whatever the case, TITANIC could have, and should have, been rendered in under two hours, and I feel that all that maudlin yapping about the strength of the love interest between Rose and Jack is just so much mouthwash. Cameron's strengths (and this movie proves it) are fleshing out action films with suspenseful moments, and the occasional charcoal drawing (Jack's sketch of Rose was his), but where dialogue is concerned, his unfinely tuned ear to human interactions levels an intiguing, monumental event, replete with very real tragedy and exquisite potential, to a bunch of signature lines that ring with corny pop catchiness: "I won't let go," (says Rose, signifying that she will stay true to The Dream, whatever that is, and Live Life To The Fullest) "When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose," "Trust Me."
So I guess now that I've said what I've said people are going to be clicking on that comments button and telling me to FUCK OFF, BITCH because LEONARDO IS GOD, amongst all other manner of lovely remarks. While I welcome replies, I wonder if I can't help you by saving you the time and saying it for you: LEONARDO DICAPRIO IS A WONDERFUL ACTOR. TITANIC IS AN EXCELLENT FILM. IT WAS NOMINATED FOR A TRUCKLOAD OF OSCARS. IT'LL WIN STACKS OF OSCARS TOO. JAMES CAMERON RULES.
There, I've said it for you. Does that make either of us any less wrong, or right?
I don't think so.
Read a considerably less acidic review of James Cameron's TITANIC at The Flying Inkpot.Read current movie reviews at The Flying Inkpot.Read other movie reviews at The Flying Inkpot.Other film reviews by other writers can also be obtained from the InkVault through key word searches.April 27th: Author's comments, in retrospect.
Well, this page has gone and joined the Anti-Titanic WebRing, not so much because I hate the film. I don't. I don't even hate Leonardo diCaprio! I like Kate Winslet, think James Cameron is bland, but OK, like bust-em-up action movies in general ... so what is this page doing on the Anti-Titanic WebRing?The answer is: it's fun, it annoys the freaky TITANIC fans (aren't they freaky, folks? They take things so PERSONALLY. Exhibits provided below), and heck, we're just so glad the WebRing liked us enough to consider us! We've never been part of a WebRing before, it's kinda like joining a special club, and here's our badge below, pending approval from Queen Titania herself.
More importantly, it's struck me, and the readers' comments to this article below prove it, that TITANIC fans either don't have it all right up there, or they're six years old. Well, all I can say is, those of you who don't like it can eat cake, or just go read articles that support your point of view, like this pro-TItanic film review also at The Inkpot. Or get a spell-checker, and a dictionary, some private tution, then come back and we'll talk. Cup-a-peach?
PS: And stop taking things so PERSONALLY. It can't be good for blood pressure.
The Flying Inkpot.
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From: Nikhil Ramkarran (nickr@rocketmail.com)
This has to be the most well written review of Titanic that I have seen. My major problem is not so much with the very obvious shortfalls of the story, acting, etc., but with the fact that such a poor story was placed with such a distressing maritime disaster, succeeding, I think, only in trivialising the entire incident. I do not want a documentary, but real people died and its presumptious to make their suffering into entertainment. The concept may not be so bad, pedestrian though it is (love story interrupted by disaster), but I think every aspect could have been better executed. I would not pay to see this movie again and regret that I did so in the first place.
