No Night to Remember

Rating: 7/10 (10 April 1999)

I hesitate to write anything at all, since there are already more than 400 entries on this site. So let me just pop off the first few things that come to mind... 1)Hardly "Best Picture" caliber. As has already been noted, the dialog is ridiculous; the leads have no romantic chemistry; and - most shocking of all - the fx really aren't worthy of the hype. The sinking is impressively staged, but scenes of the Titanic underway don't seem much more credible than a lot of back-projected stuff coming out of Hollywood six decades ago. The computer-generated pans of the ship and the ocean are staggeringly obvious. 2)Billy Zane must give one of the most unbearable performances in film history. Granted, Cameron's script gives him nothing to work with; the viewer who noted he seems to be playing Satan has it just right. The scenes where he shoots (!) repeatedly at Jack on the Grand Staircase (wouldn't the list on the ship make it pretty damn hard to navigate the staircase by this point?) and uses a child to ensure his place on a lifeboat are just idiotic. I found myself grimacing every time I looked at Zane's sallow face and slanted eyes; this brand of villainy went out in pictures - I don't know - about the time of the real Titanic sank. 3)The leads are pretty hapless; and the fact they are able to spend so much time submerged in freezing water while unlocking doors, wielding axes, etc. beggars credibility. 4)A lot of the supporting roles are well-played. David Warner doesn't fall into the trap of over-acting like Zane does, and comes off quite well as the villainous valet. He seems to be having fun, which is pretty much all an actor can do in a flick like this. Gloria Stuart is extremely effective as Old Rose; she more-or-less singlehandedly endows the film with all its human pathos. I also enjoyed Bill Paxton's performance. He etched pretty effectively the character of a jaded adventurer. If only he had some decent dialog to work with. Victor Garber - a very fine actor - is wasted as Thomas Andrews. He is invariably excellent in all his scenes. 5)Folks who take umbrage to the fictional characters would do well to remember a similar framework was used with Clifton Webb and Barbra Stanwyck as an estranged fictional couple in Negulesco's 1953 Titanic. 6)WHERE WAS THE CALIFORNIAN? If you're looking for a movie villain, this ship fits the bill. The decision to cut scenes set on the derelict vessel is really regrettable. 7)On the whole, a decent, passable picture, with many striking images and a great last hour. But it pales in comparison with the 1958 "A Night to Remember," which better captured the human drama of the ship's final moments. On the other hand, far better than the Stanwyck-Webb opus.