Titanic Review

Titanic

Director: James Cameron.

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton.

I've been hanging out to see this for ages. Since Titanic has now taken over the mantle of most expensive film ever made, costing approximately $US200 million, I want to see where the money went. Also, I'd walk across broken glass for Mr. DiCaprio. After I saw him in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, it took months before I was convinced that he wasn't mentally handicapped. And as Romeo, yum. I haven't been as impressed with Ms. Winslet, her performance in Hamlet being nothing amazing, but since her character gets to fall in love with Mr. DiCaprio, I would be able to empathise totally.

So, does the real thing measure up to the hype? Well, yes and no.

Firstly the movie looks superb. You can definitely see where the money went. The impression of luxury, opulence, of a by-gone era is magnificently conveyed. The attention to detail is incredible: I'm not a Titanic scholar so I can't say for sure whether they get everything right but at least I had the impression that they got a lot right. And the scenes towards the end where the Titanic sinks: simply breathtaking. Never once in that part did i think "It's only a model." There are only three scenes in the movie that stood out as less than the rest. Two of these are attempts at grand sweeping views over the top of the Titanic as it sails along. Both of these looked very cheesy indeed with the computer generated people walking a tad strangely. The third scene is when people are falling of the front of the boat back on to the deck of the Titanic. There are all these "oof", "ouch", "splat" sort of noises that make the scene seem almost like a Monty Python take-off. Still three short less than perfect scenes in a three and a quarter hour movie is not such a bad thing.

The movie itself can basically be split into two almost completely separate stories: there is the love story between Rose (Ms. Winslet) and Jack (Mr. DiCaprio) and there is the disaster movie. The love story is very well done with Titanic taking its time. The relationship gets to develop slowly (although I guess it's only three days!) and lovingly. The disaster movie is less successful. There are probably a few reasons why this is so. One is that it is so drawn out. As the person I was with said, "you can't just have the boat sink." To avoid this problem, however, there are too many plot contrivances, too many people chasing one another around the ship, too many people impeding our heroes' progress. Towards the end, I completely lost Hockley's (Mr. Zane) motivation for what he is doing. Perhaps some of this sense of dragging comes from the previews revealing too much. Too many scenes are set up where the outcome is known, not because we know that the Titanic sinks but because we have seen Rose and Jack further on in this scene, in the preview. Perhaps also, by that stage in the movie, its length is beginning to show. This is not to completely slam the disaster part of the movie. Some pieces are terrifying and tense and this movie could see a definite downward impact on tickets booked on cruise liners.

My major gripe about Titanic is more to do with the characters other than Rose and Jack. I just wish for a bit of moral ambiguity in my moves: good guys who aren't perfect, bad guys who aren't totally evil. There have been steps made in this direction in the movies so that we have arm-chair psychology used to explain bad guys' badness or we have a flaw in our hero. Usually however, the flaw is not a real flaw and while we know that the baddie had a horrible childhood, they are still a baddie and treat the hero terribly. In this movie, the only thing evil that Hockley doesn't do is sink the ship! This need to make the choice for the hero (Rose, in this case) so clear cut as to be blameless removes any interest from the decision. Hockley is a complete bastard so the fact that Rose chooses Jack is not a choice at all. Along with this we have the multi-cultural villain of choice, the English. These days the only politically correct villain to have is an English villain, and Titanic outdoes current movies by having a plethora of them.

These are the only flaws in an otherwise great movie. Titanic is an event in the sense that Jurassic Park and Independence Day were events. Unlike them however, Titanic contains fantastic acting, interesting characters and a believable storyline. This is a movie well worth going to see, just make sure you're in a comfortable seat.

Rating: D