TITANIC - Ship of Cliches

Titanic - Going Down Hard By The Bow.

Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you!

No matter how you slice it, James's Cameron's big budget Special effects epic TITANIC is just a super-sized episode of TV's The Love Boat.

TITANIC is certainly one of the most successful and visually stunning bad movies of all time. The special effects used to recreate the ill-fated ship and it's sinking alone are worth the price. Unfortunately, Cameron chose to wrap all that around a tepid and predictable love story that even Doc and Gopher couldn't stomach.

It's 1997 and a group of explorers led by wide-faced Bill Paxton is trying to rob the graves of the Titanic victims looking for a gaudy bobble called the Heart of the Sea necklace or more precisely, the "Straight to QVC Cubic-Zirconium Product Placement Item #T645JC". While searching the wreck for this priceless jewel-encrusted goody, the pirates/explorers find a bunch of prehistoric etchings, nude drawings of a young woman, on paper that is in remarkably good condition considering how long they've been on the ocean floor.

Meanwhile in America, withered 157 year-old Rose (Gloria Stuart) recognizes herself from the old naked etchings found at the wreck and realizes that she must rush out to the pirate/explorer ship immediately, to bore the crew with her sad tale of lost love on Titanic. The next several hours involve Rose transforming into sultry, yet bulky Kate Winslet as she tells her tale of traveling on Titanic with nasty Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) and an all-star cast of extras including, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Fox and as is the case with all Titanic movies, David Warner, this time as an evil henchman. (aren't henchmen by definition always evil?)

A good portion of the pre-iceberg story revolves around Rose meeting with and exploring various parts of the ship with new friend, poor yet doomed Jack Dawson (Leonardo Dicaprio). They travel from bow to stern or more precisely from stern to bow and everything in between in search of that perfect spot to "do it", finally on the most opulent luxury liner of all time, they settle for the back seat of some old car in the cargo hold. Talk about going down hard by the bow! Ah and they say romance is dead. Along the way, Rose also allows Jack to sketch her nude and ample form in order to create the previously mentioned impervious to seawater and silt amateur porn. I suspect this scene was more to keep the guys awaiting the big sinking scene, watching.

Eventually, and mercifully, Titanic finally hits an iceberg and the promised sinking begins. The whole sinking sequence is well done, save for the numerous episodes of stupidity intertwined with the event. The major players all do remarkably non-smart things during the time that their ship is going down, including jumping off lifeboats, rushing towards the danger and generally taking far too much time doing non-escaping antics. David Warner's character answers the question; does Titanic break in half before sinking, the band plays on. Rose hops into and then out of a lifeboat, the band plays on. Cowardly Cal saves a child by using him to slink his way onto a lifeboat, the band plays on. Jack and Rose take the plunge and the band drowns. Once in the water, Titanic (the movie) stubbornly refuses to end and the audience is treated to one of the most unlikely conversations between two freezing lovers ever.

Finally, 17 hours into Titanic, "Old" Rose finishes her story, those pirate crew members who haven't committed suicide in the meantime all look stunned and amazed, and a tad horrified no doubt at the thought of ancient Rose and the details of her sexual history with Jack.

I suppose TITANIC could have been worse, the effects are pretty special and the music is pretty, if you don't count Celine Dion. I mean, at least James Cameron didn't cast Will Smith as the Captain or something like that.

So rather than ruin the ending, which you'll see coming far sooner and clearer than any iceberg, I'll just wind up by saying that the "Heart of the QVC necklace" was in the last place you'd want to look and there's a big reunion party on Titanic for Jack and Rose. And this movie just goes on and on....(cue Celine Dion)