Would it make me a bad person if I said the only reason I watch “Titanic” is for the sinking ship?
Maybe it’s one of those things that really tells you about someone’s personality. There are those that can’t resist a good romance and others who gag every time they see the overplayed kiss from “The Notebook.” Guess where I fall.
Although it is one of the highest grossing films in history, “Titanic” is far from being on the list of my top favorite films. Script: marginal. Acting: marginal. Effects: stunning. But, as James Cameron’s other box-office blaster “Avatar” proved, effects aren’t everything.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as third-class passenger Jack Dawson who falls for aristocrat Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). For those who have seen DiCaprio’s previous role as Johnny Depp’s brother with a cognitive disability in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” (1993), watching DiCaprio in a role that requires such little effort is like watching fine French wine poured into jungle juice.
DiCaprio is also the cause of the most obnoxious part of the film. The name “Rose” doesn’t have a “w” in it. DiCaprio can pull off almost any kind of accent, but this one is more annoying than authentic.
Winslet demonstrates her acting chops and glows with youthful radiance as Rose. Regardless, I still yell at the screen toward the end of her story, “Move over on the freaking door. There’s room for both of you!” She lets go of Jack’s frozen corpse, which visibly twitches before sinking into the water, and all I can think is it’s her fault she didn’t slide her butt over.
To prove that I’m not entirely stony-hearted, I will say there will never be a romance scene as iconic as the “I’m flying” moment that was replayed in “Love, Actually” and reshot in “Moulin Rouge.” Take that, Nicholas Sparks.
Once the romance has come to a standstill and the ship starts to sink, I get interested. Watching the water, the ruined set pieces, the flickering lights and the actors’ reactions to the cold makes the movie for me. The electric pops of the lights going out and the sound of flooding create the sense of fear that I can only image the passengers on the real Titanic endured that night.
The photography of those scenes is what Cameron does best. The shots and editing of the mother kissing her children in their small cabin, the elderly couple in their bed and Victor Garber as Thomas Andrews winding the clock show the director and his editing team can handle more than the large-scale effects.
Cameron announced in 2009 that he plans to rerelease the picture to theatres in 3D. If the sinking ship was cool before, I can’t imagine how spectacular it will look once Cameron-dimension is applied. As a fan of “Avatar’s” artistic 3D, I might have to see it. Perhaps I’ll just get to the theater an hour into the movie.
