Sorry. For better or worse, with the award-plus-box office numbers posted by James Cameron's Titanic it's gonna go down as a classic. But will it go down as a Gone With The Wind or a How Green Was My Valley? I'm afraid only time will tell that one. I've actually seen this, ages ago, but in anticipation for Avatar I thought I'd give Titanic - to date, the only James Cameron movie I haven't liked - another go 'round. I left the film appreciating it more than I did the first time (come on... I was 11 when it first came out. And male.), but my feelings were still mixed.
Titanic, for all it's ultra-high budget special effects (it was the first film to cost $200+ dollars and man alive has the CGI aged well), is deeply rooted in the ways of the past. It takes it's cues from classical Hollywood epics (Gone With The Wind is the obvious comparison, but there's a little Giant and Ben-Hur in here) and places its love story front-and-center - the sinking boat comes a distant second. In the past, Cameron's focus on the central human story while surrounding it with groundbreaking visual effects (Cameron's career can be read as a cline for the quality increase in blockbuster VFX) has been his biggest boon. In fact, I'm certain that it's why I - and so many others - have connected deeply with his Terminator duology, Aliens, and The Abyss. With Titanic, though Oscar may disagree, I'm not so sure it was the best choice.
Why did this movie need to be three hours long? Why, when the central love story is actually a fairly basic 'worlds collide' love story, does Cameron need three fucking hours to tell (with a big boat sinking at the end)? My best guess is to produce a suitably epic feel. Cameron populates Titanic with all kinds of bourgeois, deckhands, street urchin's, families, and crew members and, while it adds a feeling of vitality, much of it feels unnecessarily cluttered and undeveloped. The love story between Jack and Rose, filled with chemistry and passion though it may be, feels a little unrealistic and idyllic. I will concede that there are moments that the love story does live up to the ship's namesake.
There are things I liked. Cameron's final rhapsodizing of the crew members - specifically the captain and the ship's designer - is handled with great care. Hearing Victor Garber apologize to Rose for not building her a strong enough ship is completely heartbreaking and humane. Billy Zane's character, for the most part, exemplified one of Cameron's worst habits - writing fully one-dimensional villains: he hates Picasso, he thinks lifeboats should be sacrified for deck space, he "always gets what he wants", he ignores a lone child, then subsequently uses the child as an excuse to get on a boat. Well aware of this, I'm sure, Cameron imbues Cal with one of the films strongest messages (I suppose here I should writer SPOILER ALERT, as if everyone on the planet hadn't already seen it): he has Cal survive the ordeal. With this one act, Cameron sends a venomous message to the bourgeois who ignored the "unwashed" on Titanic and their spiritual successors today.
Terminator Salvation (2009; directed by McG, written by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris)
In honor of Avatar, I just had to go from a Cameron movie to some Cameron-inspired nonsense.
I left the drab, passionless Terminator Salvation unsure of what I'd just seen: I think I liked the action, but the plot was ho-hum. I liked Sam Worthington, an actor I was unfamiliar with, but flat-out hated Christian Bale, an actor I usually adore. I was also unsure of what was going on in the timeline. The Terminator series has become so convoluted after Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a movie people hated, and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, a TV show people liked (or... ?). Does Terminator Salvation follow Terminator 3? or Sarah Connor? To the best of my knowledge, Sarah Connor ignores part 3 and continues on its own path. Normally I hate blatant exposition, but I think Terminator Salvation practically begged for it. The plot the writers concocted - involving a pre-war test subject and something about a big bomb - is no less preposterous than the previous Terminator movies, but manages to be completely uninteresting.
Why did McG and company feel that this grimified take on the Terminator storyline was best? I suppose they were inspired of the success of Batman Begins and it's sequel. Salvation takes a similarly dark path down a familiar genre world. The biggest quality difference, I think, is character. While Batman Begins and The Dark Knight put Bruce Wayne through an emotional ringer and distinct character arc, Salvation does not feel that need. John Connor remains boringly, angrily heroic throughout. Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese is background decoration. Bryce Dallas Howard worriedly hurries her way through the movie, with some relief at the end. I guess Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright constitutes the emotional arc of the story: he thinks he's human, he discovers that he's not, he discovers that he doesn't need to be flesh and blood to be human. Short Circuit? I can hear the snores from here.
I hope if another film of this Terminator incarnation is to be made they will take a hint from Cameron himself: people first, plot second, stuff blowed-up-good third.
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