Icebergs anyone

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2005)

The Irish plans to tow an iceberg to Belfast to commemorate the making of the Titanic seems a good enough reason to write a review of this movie.
So here is the spoiler of this review. They build this big ship, they think it is unsinkable, it hits an icebergs and sinks. (Other breaking news, the earth is round, Christopher Columbus fails to get to India but discovers America).
The true genius of this film is that it understands that movies take us to another place that we could not normally go but where we have a desire, either openly or secretly, to venture.
We have all heard of the Titanic and how it sank. But do we really know what it would be like to be there, in the "ruddy" north Atlantic as the largest and safest ship sinks beneath you? James Cameron uses two methods to make this come alive. Firstly, and the most obvious are the sets and special effects. A full size tilt-able Titanic and CGI. Even though the CGI looks look computer graphics it is good enough to mean we don't really need to worry about it (I am sure in a few years they will run the computer models through better software and knock out a better print so Titanic fans can buy the Titanic experience all over again).
The other technique is to create 2 fictitious characters that we care about who he put anywhere he wants during the sinking process so that we can really feel what is happening and meet many real people and see their stories.
The movie is 3 hours long, but once the Titanic starts sinking you become involved in that part of the story as if it is a story starting afresh and your attention doesn't waver from that moment on.
Overblown, pretentious film making that won the Oscar because that is what American films want to be. However it remains highly entertaining.