[Longer review than usual.]

Seen on 25 December 1997 with Tony for $8.75 + 1.50 Teleticket at the
Loews Astor in Times Square.

In ancient Rome, big spectacles kept people entertained. Sometimes, they
even recreated great naval battles, like the one at Actium, sinking a ship
if necessary. An artificial lake would be made, and a mock battle would
ensue, ships sinking, etc., all to the delight of the crowd.

Boy, things haven't changed a bit.

*Titanic* is the most expensive movie made to date--more than $200
million. Director James Cameron has been captivated by the worst maritime
disaster in history. He built a replica of the ship 90 percent to scale.
He waived his own fees to get it made. It endured audience testing and
re-editing after a stalled Summer 1997 release. I saw many previews and
anxiously awaiting my chance to see it.

So why did James Cameron raise the most dramatic story of the sea, only to
weight it down and sink its true potential with a teen romance,
action/adventure moves, and misrepresentation of what happened?

But before I go into all that, here's what's great about the movie. As
spectacles go, *Titanic* delivers one that is first class. The lush
opulence of the Titanic is recreated in great detail. The special effects
are absolutely stunning. Watching the great boat sink is something you
won't soon forget. From the moment the boat hits the iceberg to the the
time the lifeboats go back to find survivors and drift through the
bobbing, lifejacketed, frozen corpses or the "Unsinkable's" passengers,
you will be absolutely amazed at this recreation. Also, the scenes of the
ship enjoying its maiden voyage on the open sea is a real treat also,
because you get a good sense of how mammoth the Titanic was, and why it
was called the "Ship of Dreams."

The movie, however, revolves around the fictional love story of
first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater and steerage vagabond Jack
Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a world-traveler who has never shaved. Rose is
engaged to wealthy American snob Cal Hockley (Billy Zane, in too much
make-up) so she and her mother Ruth (Frances Fisher) can stay in the life
to which they are accustomed.

The Titanic's real passengers, the collision with the iceberg, the
sinking, and the aftermath are all much more compelling, and better
covered in a wonderful three-hour documentary on A&E cable TV. Also,
Titanic has several inaccuracies, like when the ship splits in half. Of
course, who wants to spend $10.25 to *not* see the ship split in half
above the waterline? In reality, it happened below the water's surface. No
one knew the ship split in two until the 1980s, when the sunken vessel was
finally found.

Because the audience testing clearly indicated that teenagers are the
target audience, the love story becomes paramount, and none of us are
spared the sort of action-adventure we are used to seeing from Cameron in
movies like *Terminator 2*. It is very hard to believe that the two young
class-crossed lovers would have as much energy as they do, what with
running through flooded passageways, breaking down gates, fleeing the
scorned fiance, etc., escaping *every* conceivable peril. In fact, it is
unlikely that these two passengers, one first class the other steerage,
would ever have met; class-conscious British boats like this kept people
firmly in their place.

Also amusing and improbable is the framing device of the story being told
in flashback by a 101-year-old Rose (Gloria Stuart) to Brock Lovett (Bill
Paxton) and his crew, who have located the submerged wreck and have found
her through a sketch Jack had made of her and a gigantic diamond, a sketch
retrieved via robotic arm in a safe her old stateroom from the ocean
floor. Real footage of the ship on the ocean floor is used, and the
computerized dissolves from the embarnacled ship's railing to the brand
new ones on the maiden voyage are very well done.

Many opportunities are missed to capture the real dramas that unfolded. It
also seems as if some key scenes wound up on the editing room floor. For
example, we see an old couple on a bed together as their room fills with
water, but we never really saw them before. Undoubtedly these are the
famous Strauses (owners of Macy's); the wife refusing to get on a lifeboat
when she had the chance, to stay with her husband of 40+ years of
marriage. Also, there is no sort of epilogue, no text telling us how the
disaster resulted in international laws ensuring lifeboat space for all
aboard ocean vessels; nothing of the inquiry into the disaster, nothing of
the press sensation and how the media pilloried the White Star Line's
executive, Bruce Ismay in print. Ismay exhorted the captain to make
headlines by pushing the engines to the limit; instead, the ship hit the
iceberg with no chance of avoiding it. Apparently, it was going too fast,
and the lookouts had no binoculars, and there was no time to turn the ship
in time.

So, for all the money it cost to make this film, it ends up being a *Jerry
Maguire* at sea, with romance for the ladies and action for the guys and
little or nothing to do with the White Star Line's push to get noticed in
the press or with the many preventable disasters that befell the ship.

As for the performances, the most spirited one, for as much as we get to
see her is Kathy Bates as the down-to-earth American millionnaire--the
"unsinkable" Molly Brown. The principal actors of the love triangle do
what they are supposed to do, but I was not really moved by them. The best
performance in Titanic is the ship itself, and it is so well done, you
won't be disappointed.