If life hands you a lemon, you make lemonade, right? So what happens if life hands you a kumquat
If life hands you a lemon, you make lemonade, right? So what happens if life hands you a kumquat
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Believe it or not, it's been nearly five years since Titanic first hit cinemas. Time then for another look, maybe? We'll see...
If I remember rightly, five years ago the world was gleefully waiting for Titanic the movie to sink faster than Titanic the ship. Rumours were rife that it was shaping up to be the most problematic shoot in film history - food poisonings, illnesses, on-set tantrums, injured stuntmen - not to mention the astronomical budget and reports that the director had become an unrelenting megalomaniac. "James Cameron has spent $200 million on a turkey!" - screamed the papers and the mags. The critics, no doubt armed with a barrage of amusingly nautical put-downs ("Madman Overboard", "Abandon Ship", "Man the Bilge Pumps" etc..etc...) were lining up with tomahawks ready to hack it to pieces and 20th Century Fox were all but ready to declare bankruptcy. Certainly not good omens. Of course, when the film opened not only did it sail into the history books as the most successful film of all time but bagged Cameron no fewer than eleven Oscars and yet despite all the doom-mongering beforehand, no-one in the entire world seemed the slightest bit surprised. But at the end of
the day, is it actually any good? Is it worth watching? Or should I say is it worth watching again, seeing as every man and his dog have already seen it at least once?
Well...in a word, no. Titanic is, for the most part, awful. It's too long for a start but aside from that it's badly acted, the script is risible, it's riddled with ludicrous cliches (the ship's steerage areas look like something out of a Caffrey's advert) and a large portion of it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, there's this salvage crew right? And they've hired this expensive ship (at a cost of what? £100,000 a day?) to go out to the wreck and find a jewel, right? Then this hundred year old coffin-dodger phones them up claiming she knows where it is. They pick her up and she spends three hours telling them how she copped off with some baby-faced pretty boy below decks and yet at no point do any of the crew say to her, "Yes, but where's the bloody jewel?" Not only that, the long-running debate over whether or not Leonardo DiCrappio can actually act is finally put to rest (clue: he can't), the oscar-winning special effects are a joke (Starship Troopers was robbed!) and the whole thing is capped off with some typically inane warblings from Sealion Dion. Oh yes, if you're looking for 'movies worth mauling' then Titanic offers no shortage of ammunition.
For some reason though I can't quite bring myself to slag it off completely. You see some movies mean more than just a well-spent couple of hours in a darkened room. Some movies have more on the agenda than mere entertainment. Some become the topic of thousands of pub conversations, work their way into popular culture and in some way or another (and not necessarily a good way) change the shape of movies to come. These are movies that MATTER. 'Battleship Potemkin', 'Metropolis', 'Psycho', 'Jaws' and of course 'Star Wars' to name but a few and whether you like it or not, Titanic falls into this category. You can argue about the artistic merits of this nautical behemoth all day long but one thing remains clear... Titanic MATTERS.
It matters because it became more than just a movie, it became a genuine generational phenomenon. We may have scoffed at it, we may have said to our mates that the only reason we watched it was to see Kate Winslet get her funbags out, we may well have loathed every second of it, but the fact is we all paid our fiver to go and see it. To this day there hasn't been a single film that comes close to Titanic's colossal $1.8 billion in box office takings, its next nearest rival - The Phantom Menace - hasn't even passed the billion mark. Cynics will argue that Titanic's huge profits were largely due to the hordes of teenage girls who went back again and again to drool over Leo in a tux' and it's not untrue to say that your average screening more resembled a Westlife gig than a cinema (only with slightly less dreadful Oirish music), but the fact is we ALL went to see it. We took our girlfriends, we took our mums, we even took our grandmas - our grandmas who hadn't ventured out to the fleapit in forty-odd years - and we all had something to say about it afterwards.
Now that's quite an achievement, even for a moderately priced, efficiently produced movie but as we all know, Titanic was anything but an efficient production. Aside from the obvious logistical nightmare of recreating the actual disaster, Cameron had to cope with a saboteur drugging the tuna fish (and thus, the crew), freak lightning storms, stuntmen with broken limbs (and thus, impending lawsuits), a divorce and a particularly virulent bout of the flu. The fact that Titanic was released at all is a minor miracle. While Pearl Harbor - Titanic's most obvious imitator - proves nothing apart from 'anything is possible if you throw enough cash at it', Titanic made it to the big screen thanks to one man's vision, ambition and sheer determination against almost impossible odds and despite being made a laughing stock of during the production, ultimately it was Cameron who had the last laugh and for that, I tip my hat to him.
So, going back to my original question: "Is it worth watching again?" Sorry Jim, but that's still a no, I'm afraid.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1995 - Drama - Director: Ang Lee - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy
Production Year: 1995 - Drama - Director: Ang Lee - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
So - you didn't like it, then? LOL. Enjoyable read! Andrew
mattygroves 20.11.2002 14:57
My (11 year old) daughter has seen this...again, and again, and again...and again, and again...and again, and again and again - I think you get the point. But she likes Leo, and the music, so I suppose...nah. I agree. It's dross. Thanks for that! Cheers, Kate
glitterprincess 19.11.2002 15:52
Nope, you're right. Definitely not worth watching again! Jami xx
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1997, media pundits speculated that Cameron's $200 million disaster epic would cause the director's downfall, signal the end of the blockbuster era and sink Param...
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When the theatrical release of James Cameron'sTitanicwas delayed from July to December of ... more
1997, media pundits speculated that Cameron's $200 million disaster epic would cause the director's downfall, signal the end of the blockbuster era and sink Param...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Nothing on earth can rival the epic spectacle and breathtaking grandeur of Titanic the ... more
sweeping love story that sailed into the hearts of moviegoers around the world ultimately emerging as the most popular motion picture of all time. Leonardo DiCapri...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Nothing on earth can rival the epic spectacle and breathtaking grandeur of Titanic. Winner ... more
of eleven Academy Awards., including Best Picture, this sweeping love story sailed into the hearts of moviegoers around the globe, ultimately emerging as the mos...
Advantages: Fanatastic, Sensational, Marvellous film with plenty of extra features on 4 Discs Disadvantages: None worth being labelled as a genuine disadvantage
![Titanic [1998] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78258924.jpg "Titanic [1998] [DVD]")
Oct 9th, 2002
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