Review: Titanic (1997)

“His name is Jaaaaames Cameron, explorer of the sea!

No budget too steep! No ocean too deep!

Who is he? James Cameron!”

From one blockbuster to another, it’s time to talk a director who’s given us not one, but two record-breaking box office toppers. We’ll get to the new Avatar soon, but first, it’s a look back twenty-five years to that one movie that dominated the scene in ’97. I might’ve been a young ‘un then but even then I recall it being everywhere—and for a good few years after that you’d always get it at the top of the VHS racks in any which store. We all remember the Celine Dion song, we all remember Cameron declaring himself king of the world, but how does his last billion-dollar flick hold up?

I guess it is interesting that Cameron’s filmography is comparatively small next to say Spielberg, but at the same time, his influence has reached far. His scifi flick entries such as the iconic first two Terminators reach far of course, with the second one setting the landmark for blockbusters into the nineties. After that he wavered a bit with True Lies—a film with entertainment to offer if you’re a Schwarzenegger fan, but one that was still a bit too long and indulgent. After that Cameron went to what his by now his undeniable genuine passion—that of the ocean. Boy, does he like the ocean. Call him an egomaniac if you want, but hell, you don’t go to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in a tiny metal ball unless you really genuinely like that kinda thing. 

We do see this in the opening of Titanic—there’s lots of underwater drone tech shown off in the contemporary-set framing scenes, probably all very cutting edge for the time. After that, you probably know the score—a exploration team seeking loot from the wreck of the eponymous big boat recruit a centenarian by the name of Rose, who recounts her trip as a young lady while played by Kate Winslet, and the resulting young affair with a sexy Leonardo DiCaprio stealing her heart. It’s a little bit like Romeo and Juliet…a very short time after DiCaprio starred in the very bemusing Romeo + Juliet. 

Ah, a century before Patreon, Jack at least didn't have to get by through drawing...weird stuff. 

 Well, let’s get right into it—subtlety was never Cameron’s strong suit in his writing, and the romantic plot of Titanic is your fairly straightforward ‘love at first sight’ schtick, with I guess the classism of the 1910s bearing over it. You’ve got our attractive main couple, you’ve got our cartoonish evil fiancée played by Billy Zane whose every other line may as well be ‘bwohohoho I’m nasty’, and you do have a few decently fun side characters like Kathy Bates as the historical Molly Brown. 

I can make more jokes about the whole thing, but really, it’s important to note that Cameron obviously knows how to make a success out of this kind of thing. Knowing your audience is critical to any work—and when you’re selling an epic super-expensive film like this, your audience is the whole world, from Manhattan to Mumbai. With that in mind, you keep it simple, but catching and memorable enough. 

And that’s what’s done well enough here—DiCaprio and Winslet look good, but of course play what’s given with the all-important sincerity. We all remember ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ twenty-five years on after all. It’s all kind of cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheesy that’s pulled off with just the right flair that Cameron knows how to do. 

Another thing that Cameron is also an undeniable expert in, going back to his very early days in managing special effects on Roger Corman B-movies in the early eighties, is the technical side—and, I gotta admit, the actual sinking of the Titanic is pulled off pretty darn well. Seeing the ship break apart like a snapping spine is a little wincing, and it helps that most of the actors playing the historical crew, like Bernard Hill as Captain Smith, do their part admirably. Historical liberties abound naturally, but then certain other directors would’ve just had a giant squid shooting lasers attack the Titanic. Actually, we’ll get back to that bit.

That disaster movie side of the flick was of course the main draw alongside the love story, and that’s another important crowd pleaser—and above all else, Cameron by now knew how to please a crowd. That’s no insult—films as sprawling as this do need just the right level of hook to ensure audiences get in the seats, and while Titanic may not be my first choice exactly to rewatch from his filmography, I do at least give kudos for being able to appreciate just how it crashed through the ’97 cinema scene like an errant iceberg. And hey, to this day people debate that whole floating door scene at the end among other things, so at least we’re left with something to talk about. 

A wild Canadian appears--that's what it takes to get Jack up on the raft. 

Now, you want an actual disastrous movie about Titanic? There were not one, but two Italian animated ripoffs that will leave you feeling drunk even if you never touched any booze! I remember catching one on TV as a kid and even then I thought the animation was shoddy. Both films basically copy the Cameron epic with some roles changed around (instead of an evil fiancée, there’s an evil stepmother—the originality floors me!), and both have cutesy talking animals, the most appropriate addition to a story about a disaster where thousands froze to death. One involves a rapping dog literally coming out of nowhere, because of course…and yes, it makes even less sense in context. The other has the Titanic actually saved by a giant talking octopus. Do you feel like part of your brain curled up into itself just by thinking about that? Good, it means you have more sense than whoever greenlit that. 

This wasn't so much the ship of dreams so much as the ship of ARGH MAKE IT STOP.

Anyway, that’s my rambling about Titanic—kinda schmaltzy but with its moments. Next time, you might as well put on some Eiffel 65 as things get more blue...