THE PLOT THUS FAR
A boy and a girl from differing social backgrounds meet during the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
I was sick of “Titanic” before the flick even came out. I started working at a theater roughly three months before the film was finally released. In that time, everyone was being told about the monstrous flick about the Titanic that had been bumped from the summer to the Christmas holiday. Most everyone expected it to tank while “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Scream 2” would carry the season. It really is funny how wrong those people were in the long run. Let’s start the review.
“Titanic” opens with a framing device about the elderly Rose DeWitt Bukater (Gloria Stuart), as she is brought to the wreckage of the Titanic. She’s asked by Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) to come out to the site to identify the Hope Diamond. That’s when Rose slips into flashback mode. 17 year old Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) is sailing to America where she can expect a nice life of nothing. She’s being forced to marry rich bastard Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). She hates what will become of her life, so she tries to jump off the ship.
That’s when she is rescued by Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). Jack and Rose fall in love, and soon Rose invites him to a dinner party in the first class dining room. Cal’s manservant, Lovejoy (David Warner) tries to keep the two apart, but Rose and Jack make their way to the steerage section. Steerage is full of the poor and Irish. They dance jigs and do the stuff that poor people do on long boat trips. Captain Smith (Bernard Hill) tries to knock some time off the trip and they venture through some glaciers. Thus, the exciting part of the movie starts.
The melodrama ends and the hypothermia begins. Drowning, freezing and others means of death are put on display to make the fourteen year old girls in the crowd feel some sense of emotion other than lust for DiCaprio. The film resolves itself when we return to the present where the 101 year old Rose tosses the Hope Diamond back into the Atlantic Ocean. She remembers her time with Jack nearly 75 years ago and smiles. Needless to say, Rose had gone batshit crazy in that time.
After a ball busting three hours and fourteen minutes spent with this flick, I had to do two things. First off, I had to lament the fact that the James Cameron of “The Terminator” and “Aliens” had long since died off. Secondly, I had to deal with the fact that this melodramatic film overtook “A New Hope” as the highest grossing film of all time in the United States. Normally, I don’t give a damn about financial records, but it pissed me off that six hundred million dollars was given to this film. It could have feed the homeless or been used to make the first porn flick from Pixar. You know that you would buy a ticket to a CGI porno about a Monster trying to get laid, if it was voiced by John Goodman. Anybody would at least see it once. Well, CGI porn aside, “Titanic” was a decent flick with a hype machine and fanbase that pushed it to more glory than the flick deserved.
The Blu-Ray comes with a ton of featurettes, commentaries, music video, trailers, digital copy, deleted scenes and documentaries. The 3D transfer is dark, but still reference quality. Ever since we built the new theater, I’ve had few films to really make the presentation sing. Now, this is my reference disc for 3D action. That is unless “Hugo” is already loaded in the player. But, I digress.
What Paramount has done here is to include every supplemental feature made for the movie. Some of it are new reflections on the flick, while others are James Cameron remembering past victories from his Avatar haze. However, not enough can be said about this stunning 1080p transfer and DTS-HD 5.1 audio track that is THX certified. It’s like James Cameron came down from Home Theater boner mountain and bestowed his dark gift upon us. This is truly one of the greatest Blu-Ray discs ever crafted. In the end, I’d recommend a purchase.
RELEASE DATE: 09/10/2012
