Ship of Fools

Rating: Null/10 (3 November 2001)

Titanic is the cinematic equivalent of a pop-up fairy tale book for children, complete with cardboard characters and a plot that would be laughed out of Junior High. It's story and cast of Ogres and Heroes would be cartoon-like but somehow manages to be more two-dimensional and is so drawn-out that it seems the voyage is filmed in real time. It's astonishing popularity I can only credit to a world wide stupidity epidemic, perhaps passed on by ship's rats.
We start shipping water right from the start with the introduction of `Jack', the main protagonist. He is dressed in period garb but may as well have stepped out of a rap video for all the sense of 1912 he conveys. He sleeps rough every night yet manages to wash his blond hair daily. Funny about that. The rest of the crew and guests resemble nothing more than ones and zeros in the shimmering computer simulation we know the ship to be.
But hark! A lookout has spied something huge heaving into view - the iceberg, the real star of the movie, appearing at last? Alas no, it's James Cameron's ego steaming toward us, bent on wreaking havoc below the waterline. Armed with his deathly dialogue and with no way to pump out the bilge water of his drama fast enough, there is no escape and we are doomed to slide beneath the cold dark waves.