*** (out of four stars)
Alternate Rating: B

Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers.
Be forewarned.

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Well, it finally made it. After wreaking havoc with summer film
release schedules by missing its original release date, after
overshooting its target and achieving notoriety as the most expensive
film shoot in history, after bizarre mishaps and calamities during
production (how often is it that the catering's laced with PCP,
anyways?), James Cameron's mega-epic TITANIC has finally sailed into
dock. While in the months leading up to its release many curmudgeons
decried its four-plus minute trailer, replete with soapy
sentimentality and gun battle, I couldn't have disagreed more -- I
found that the promotional footage splendidly whetted my appetite for
the film with the promise of grand old-fashioned melodrama of the
first order amidst a faithful re-creation of one of the most
spectacular disasters in modern history.

The first impression the film leaves is a striking one: as is
typically the case in Mr. Cameron's productions, TITANIC is visual
eye-candy. The film's re-creation of the mighty R.M.S. Titanic is a
stupendous achievement, convincingly colossal and breathtakingly
majestic. The sheer magnitude of the ship is immediately conveyed,
and from the vessel's grimy, hellish, coal-ladened bowels to the
lavish sets and extravagantly grandiose interiors of the stately
ballrooms, the net effect is never less than stunning. From the
dazzling period costumes right down to minisculars like the woodwork
and even ashtrays, the film's faithfulness to authenticity is
impressively persuasive; it's if we're truly back in 1912 on board
the ship's maiden voyage -- fine praise indeed. The verisimilitude
and grandeur of the finely-observed vessel is a marvel of modern-day
filmmaking.

No doubt about it -- the ship looks terrific, and the awesome
duplication is emphasised by repeated matching dissolve shots between
the sunken rusted carcass of the real-life boat and that of Mr.
Cameron's cinematic creation, tiny people scurrying about on its
deck. Employing this technique, the splendour of his vision is
dazzling, contrasting the submerged, dead vessel with the shining
lustre of his Titanic, but soon wears thin after multiple match
dissolves.

Of course, as spectacular as his ship may be, it's not enough to
cinematically resurrect the Titanic simply in order to sink it, and
Mr. Cameron has consequently grafted a simplistic tale of romantic
fiction onto the film, focusing upon two young characters:
devil-may-care drifting artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who
won his steerage-class ticket back to America in a last-minute poker
game (a silly but fairly effective plot device), and upper-class Rose
DeWitt Butaker (Kate Winslet), onboard along with her domineering,
class-conscious mother (Frances Fisher) and haughty, prosperous
fiance Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). As one can expect, the lovely Rose
feels stifled by her mother's officiousness and is miserable about
her engagement with the insufferable Cal -- so much so that only
Jack's unexpected intervention prevents her from diving overboard one
fateful evening. The two begin an affair.

While Mr. Cameron did weave a set of fictional characters for the
ride on the Titanic, he didn't give them much depth; there's a lot of
one-note characterization in the film, which is surprising coming
from him given his impressive track record of creating involving,
thoughtful characters in genres where it's usually considered an
afterthought. In TITANIC, villainous Cal Hockley is a snooty
aristocrat who's, well, a snooty aristocrat, while our dashing hero
Jack is hopelessly lovable. Meanwhile, the film depicts all of the
third-class passengers as the salt of the earth, while the
first-class people are impossibly pompous and arrogantly
class-conscious, except for the irrepressible "unsinkable" Molly
Brown (Kathy Bates), whom, it is pointed out, is a third-classer at
heart and in spirit. Aspects of the Edwardian class struggle
inundate themselves so fully into the film that by the time
star-cross'd lovers Jack and Rose reject a dull first-class dinner
party for a third-class romp in steerage (complete with fiddler), the
point has already been clearly driven home.

The characters in the film are essentially tired, cliched archetypes,
but that's not necessarily detrimental, particularly in this case;
indeed, such uncomplex characters lend themselves most handily to
melodrama, where the more sharply-defined the division between good
and evil, the better. Let's see: we have the winning, scruffy,
poor-but-good-hearted young hero with the spirited, beautiful heroine
at his side; the hissable, sneering rich villain (with the haughty
accent to boot) -- perfect, right?

By all rights it should be, and yet the film is lacking that little
extra push to drive it into full-fledged, unabashed melodrama; it's
timidly toeing the water rather than plunging right in. There's an
intimate scene shared by Jack and Rose on the apex of the bow railing
where she excitedly gasps, "I'm flying!"; it should be a
spellbinding, dizzying moment, yet it somehow lacks a sense of
rapturously wondrous magic that symbolises their passion. Throughout
the film, the score by James Horner fails to lend the emotional punch
it so sorely requires; consider the effectiveness of his score in the
last big-budget melodrama brought to the screen, LEGENDS OF THE FALL,
and contrast with his nautical New Age hodgepodge here.

One can certainly make an arguable case that Mr. DiCaprio and Ms.
Winslet are the two best actors of their generation -- I can't
imagine too many filmmakers frowning at the prospect of them in a
cast list -- and landing them both for the film was a bonafide coup.
Still, their performances in the film are at times somewhat tentative
and reserved amidst all of the unblushing romanticism that Mr.
Cameron's screenplay churns up; the melodrama of the piece is best
served during the moments where they throw all caution to the wind
and simply embrace the brazen sentimentality pervasive in the
dialogue; I couldn't help from mentally coaxing "More ... more ...
play it bigger!" during scenes where a more naturalistic acting
stance was adopted. Obviously, their respective performances remain
more than serviceable, but I can't help from wondering how much more
grand the net effect would be had the characters been portrayed as
larger-than-life. At one point, Rose gasps "This is where we first
met!"; there should be an overflowing of emotion, pathos, and
poignancy at her utterance, but the actual associative sentiment is
rather hollow.

The entire 1912 saga is framed by present-day intrigue involving
Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton, a veteran on Mr. Cameron's films) and what
appears to be the insufferable team from TWISTER transported
underwater (when one yahoo quipped, "Oops, somebody left the water
running," I hoped someone would toss him overboard) in search of an
invaluable diamond. The pursuit of Le Coeur de la Mer is a decidedly
hokey plot device, but at least it brings the refined grace of Gloria
Stuart, who plays Rose at age 101, and who narrates the flashbacks
which comprise the bulk of the film.

Although the film is primarily set over eighty years ago, Mr. Cameron
takes great pains to ensure that it's not a stodgy period piece.
There are dubious anachronisms incorporated in the story which
blatantly serve to cater to present-day audiences: Jack and Rose
engaged in spitting lessons, and lady Rose issuing The Finger, as
well as crowdpleasing moments such as throwaway references to Picasso
and Monet, Jack strutting faux-haughtily in a new tuxedo, and the
utterance of various seriocomic one-liners.

It takes a while for the iceberg to finally down the mighty ocean
liner, but when it does, it's a one-of-a-kind spectacle and a triumph
of visual effects. Breathtakingly played out in approximate
real-time, the cataclysmic death throes of the Titanic are
astonishingly realistic. To his credit, Mr. Cameron ensures that the
logistics of the vessel's demise are clearly handled via the
presentation of a computer simulation at the beginning of the film,
removing any uncertainty about the technical manner of the sinking,
and, if anything, adding a layer of dread to the entire affair.

While the Titanic's swan song is undoubtedly the showstopping
centerpiece of the film, the romance of the first half isn't left
neglected; indeed, despite the fact that the troubles of our heroes
are dwarfed by the magnitude of the ongoing catastrophe, the film
resolutely continues to cut back to them. More than any of the
previous films which have dealt with the tragedy of the ship, this
film specifically focuses on a small core of characters, and
questionably shares equal amounts of screentime with the craft's
apocalyptic destruction as it does with the fictionalized below-decks
escape plot, involving handcuffs, blazing pistols, and countless
shots of corridors flooding with water. I felt that the balance
should have been somewhat swayed; the interesting goings-on outside
involving the boarding of the lifeboats, the barricading of the
steerage-class, and the rapidly emerging realisation of the
situation's gravity was far more fascinating. (Mr. Cameron also
continues to play out the class card well into the sinking, depicting
many of the snooty rich people as being mildly irked by the
inconvenience of being put on alert and even sending their assistants
for tea. Those dumb rich people.)

The most earthshattering moment in the film is when the ship cracks
apart and plunges perpendicularly into the icy depths of the
Atlantic. ("This is it!" shouts one character in a tone which rather
distractingly belies excited anticipation more than fear.) As the
camera cranes up, revealing passengers vainly struggling to hold onto
something -- anything -- and others sliding down the now-vertical
deck of the ship, plummeting into the darkness of the churning water
below, the vision is truly nightmarish. There are a lot of terrific
shots during the film's latter half -- a quick glimpse of a group of
people floundering in the water like thrashing fish is particularly
memorable -- but there's plentiful usage of easy sympathy devices --
women clutching crying little children and the like. In some
respect, Mr. Cameron's helming of the human effect of the calamity is
literally Spielberg-esque in its calculating nature.

The film reaches emotional resonance in the wake of the disaster,
which finds the two leads hitting their stride and acting their
hearts out in a stirring scene of remarkable tenderness and
poignancy. It's a heartbreaking moment, and a fantastic payoff to
the romantic angle in the film.

TITANIC hinges upon the performances of its two leads, who are
front-and-centre throughout the flick. Ms. Winslet, sporting an
excellent American accent here, has had a remarkable film career to
date; save for her first Hollywood production, she's turned in one
award-calibre performance after another. She's good here, although
she sadly lacks the vivacity which have marked her previous turns.
(One is left wondering if her alleged unhappiness during the shoot
drained her zeal.) Mr. DiCaprio is saddled with a difficult role in
the film -- a flawless, dreamy caricature; the man of every girl's
dreams, and the man that every guy would like to be: dashing,
handsome, adventurous, spirited. He pulls it off well, but he's at
his best in the film's dying moments as his character struggles to
guide Rose to safety, displaying a remarkably steady and calming
presence that belies his youthful vigour.

When the concept for the project was being developed, it was pitched
to the studios as "Romeo & Juliet onboard the Titanic" (and, to that
ends, how incredibly apt it was that the most recent film incarnation
of the Montague spawn was eventually cast as the dashing hero, wasn't
it?). TITANIC has the latter part down pat; if the former section
were nearly as assured, we'd really have something.

- Alex Fung
email: [email protected]
web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/