#5: TITANIC 3D

 

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci David Warner, Bill Paxton. Written and directed by James Cameron. Running time 195 minutes and budget $200 million. Box office takings so far and as of 2023 $2.225 billion.

CHRIST ALMIGHTY! It's the middle of Feb and I've only seen five films this year! What the hell is wrong with the cinema, where is all the new stuff!!

With absolutely nothing new to see at the cinema and nothing seen in a couple of weeks I was forced, at gun point by my wife, to go and see 'something, anything as long as it gets you out of the house!' So I opted for this a film I've not seen in its entirety since 1997 when it was first released and a film I disliked a great deal.

So, 26 years how did it fare? First off this time it was in 3D, that miracle saviour of the cinema that gave film makers and cinema chain owners a new way to squeeze extra money out of its punters having exhausted their plunder on the concessionary stand, I mean, surely that's it for popcorn prices? This time round as indeed with almost every single 3D film so far made (apart from Avatar Way of Water) the 3D does nothing at all and enhances nothing either, you quickly forget you're even watching a 3D film and indeed I was half way out of the theatre before I realised I was still wearing mine. Annoyingly I couldn't see this film in any other way, so that's an extra £1.25 Cineworld has got out of me. 

As to the film, well, was it as thrilling as the first time? Did I fall in love with Rose and Jack all over again, or did I wish they'd all died in that freezing cold water. Nope, nothing's changed.

What I realised watching it was what a great question it makes for film nerds. There's this game we play at work, where you ask for the name of a film giving only the roles the same actors played as comic book characters in other films and people have to guess the film, so in this instance you have this:

What film saw Jeff Tracey, The Phantom, Jack the Ripper, Black Beauty and Reed Richards fight over the world's biggest diamond. 

At over three hours I nodded off for half an hour but missed nothing coming back just after the sweaty shagging scene in the back of a car and nicely in time for the date with destiny and a sodding great ice cube. 

As with all Cameron's modern films, you cannot fault that man's commitment and technical abilities, the staging of the sinking and the drama of it all are superb and he's great at staging action, it really makes that part of the film simply thrilling.

Sadly the same thing cannot be said of the rest, indeed what I hated the first time round still bothered me this time too – the addition of the stupid made up romance between Jack and Rose, and all that that entailed, all that running about back and forth back into the sinking ship over and over again, at one point, Rose leaps back into the sinking ship several stories below, meaning Jack, who's only just escaped from drowning has to go back inside again just to rescue her again! Typical, it's all about her.

I would have loved it far more if there hadn't been the romantic bit wedged into it and he'd focused on actual real people, like they do with Roy Ward Baker's 1958 movie, starring Kenneth More - A Night to Remember, that splendid British movie about Titanic, but then it probably wouldn't be the third highest grossing film of all times.

This time I was also struck by just how genuinely stupid Rose actually is, why does she chuck that blue diamond into the sea at the film's climax? Think about it, it brought her and Jack nothing but trouble and it's not as if it was given to her as a token of love, if only she hadn't been so self centred and ego-centric she could have sold it, or when her vile ex-fiancee claimed the insurance she could have exposed him for the crooked bastard he was. No, instead she chucks it over board! Makes no bloody sense at all.

I've Nothing else to add really. It's Titanic, it was absolutely critic proof back then, in the exact opposite way that the real life Titanic was unsinkable and I still remember with great amusement how ALL the film pundits and critics alike were predicting the biggest flop ever and the world's biggest filmic disaster movie EVER before it even opened and all the humble pie they had to eat afterwards.

Me personally, only last week, I predicted it would be a huge hit and this week it over took Avatar: Way of Water to become the third biggest grossing picture of all times! Well that is until next week when Avie overtakes it again. 

Haha, how wrong they were.  

8/10