Short of climbing aboard a time capsule and peeling back eight and one-half decades, James Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the closest any of us will get to walking the decks of the doomed ocean liner. Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it -- from the launch to the sinking, then on a journey two and one-half miles below the surface, into the cold, watery grave where Cameron has shot never-before seen documentary footage specifically for this movie.
In each of his previous outings, Cameron has pushed the special effects envelope. In Aliens, he cloned H.R. Giger's creation dozens of times, fashioning an army of nightmarish monsters. In The Abyss, he took us deep under the sea to greet a band of benevolent space travelers. In T2, he introduced the morphing terminator (perfecting an effects process that was pioneered in The Abyss). And in True Lies, he used digital technology to choreograph an in-air battle. Now, in Titanic, Cameron's flawless re-creation of the legendary ship has blurred the line between reality and illusion to such a degree that we can't be sure what's real and what isn't. To make this movie, it's as if Cameron built an all-new Titanic, let it sail, then sunk it.
Of course, special effects alone don't make for a successful film, and Titanic would have been nothing more than an expensive piece of eye candy without a gripping story featuring interesting characters. In his previous outings, Cameron has always placed people above the technological marvels that surround them. Unlike film makers such as Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, Cameron has used visual effects to serve his plot, not the other way around. That hasn't changed with Titanic. The picture's spectacle is the ship's sinking, but its core is the affair between a pair of mismatched, star-crossed lovers.
Titanic is a romance, an adventure, and a thriller all rolled into one. It contains moments of exuberance, humor, pathos, and tragedy. In their own way, the characters are all larger-than- life, but they're human enough (with all of the attendant frailties) to capture our sympathy. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Titanic is that, even though Cameron carefully recreates the death of the ship in all of its terrible grandeur, the event never eclipses the protagonists. To the end, we never cease caring about Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).
In each of his previous outings, Cameron has pushed the special effects envelope. In Aliens, he cloned H.R. Giger's creation dozens of times, fashioning an army of nightmarish monsters. In The Abyss, he took us deep under the sea to greet a band of benevolent space travelers. In T2, he introduced the morphing terminator (perfecting an effects process that was pioneered in The Abyss). And in True Lies, he used digital technology to choreograph an in-air battle. Now, in Titanic, Cameron's flawless re-creation of the legendary ship has blurred the line between reality and illusion to such a degree that we can't be sure what's real and what isn't. To make this movie, it's as if Cameron built an all-new Titanic, let it sail, then sunk it.
Of course, special effects alone don't make for a successful film, and Titanic would have been nothing more than an expensive piece of eye candy without a gripping story featuring interesting characters. In his previous outings, Cameron has always placed people above the technological marvels that surround them. Unlike film makers such as Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, Cameron has used visual effects to serve his plot, not the other way around. That hasn't changed with Titanic. The picture's spectacle is the ship's sinking, but its core is the affair between a pair of mismatched, star-crossed lovers.
Titanic is a romance, an adventure, and a thriller all rolled into one. It contains moments of exuberance, humor, pathos, and tragedy. In their own way, the characters are all larger-than- life, but they're human enough (with all of the attendant frailties) to capture our sympathy. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Titanic is that, even though Cameron carefully recreates the death of the ship in all of its terrible grandeur, the event never eclipses the protagonists. To the end, we never cease caring about Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).
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