Thursday 29 January 2015

IMDb Bottom 100 Review - 60 Titanic the Legend Goes On...

The second animated movie, if you don't count Troll 2 (and really it's cartoonish enough to qualify) on the list, and contrary to no popular opinion, a complete waste of time. Talking animals, love across social classes, evil step sisters and also talking animals. Oh and the ship goes down in this one too. Sorry to spoil it. Let's just sink right into this review, as it were. Sink in, you know. Alright fine, then just join me in looking at...

Look at this shit. It simply should not be a thing that exists.

With animated flicks, for some reason, I'm lulled into this naïve belief, that because production of it necessarily must be more cumbersome than a standard production, it automatically ups the quality. Through the magic that was Kis Vuk I had that thesis effectively and instantly disproved. However, the notion that somebody involved in these flicks still stopped for a second, looked at what they were doing and went 'What has my life become?' keeps sneaking into my thinking apparatus. Perhaps I'm just slow. I ate a lot of paint chips when I was younger (mid-20s – it wasn't recreational. I'm just that stupid) so anything is technically possible. I can't say I'm disappointed exactly, when I watch the next installment in this hell that has become my waking hours, but still my heart sinks a little when the end credits roll and I feel like my mind has just been pelted with frozen grapes (don't ask). Mostly I think I just lack the answer to that one vital question 'Why?'.

Willie trying to woe Angelica with this look was a thing of sheer beauty. 

The why in this case, is probably best answered with the phrase 'because Titanic'. Because that's literally all this is. Bring up Titanic before your inner silver screen, if you would please, and quickly zip through it. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl is higher up in the class system, boy becomes alcoholic but eventually cleans up, girl indulges boy, ship crashes and people die end of story. It's more or less what happened in real life too. Take that plot, minus a few elements, substitute Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio with shitty looking animations, and half of the supporting cast with talking animals, and you've got some of what's going on here. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. Tip. Of the iceberg? Still no? No worries, we'll get there in the end. The did us the favor of reversing the genders at least, so it feels somewhat fresh. The girl embarks the Titanic with her step-mon and two evil step-sisters. It's pretty much Cinderella, because they threw in talking mice and a bird too, and there is some shit about a dress and a penchant containing a picture of this girl's mother. The dude is Willie or Will for short (it needed saying) who is a Lord or something and travels to the states to find true love.

Much like real life, according to legend, the band kept playing until the very end. Same song as they played during dinner too. 

Everything goes pretty according to plan. The rest of the cast is a veritable who's who of standard animation flick characters. The evil theif lady with two nitwit cronies, the bumbling but well meaning detective tracking them, the good hearted nanny to Willie, another kind old lady that helps our main girl with the dress and finally the first officer on the shit, who comes off as a bad guy but probably is just jealous of the last character worth mentioning here: Gaston. Yes, he even looks like the fucker off of Beauty and the Beast and is, of course, also French. Just like Angelica has a striking resemblance to Anastasia from the movie of the same name. Disney ripoff #2 and #3 identified. The animals help find the penchant that Gaston had picked up/stolen from the ground at the docks and given to a big bosomed singer he fancies for that reason. The penchant is returned, and Willie falls in love with Angelica (for that is her name) literally, I think, before first sight even. He's like in the same room as Angelica and that's it. Love at first being within 100 feet of one another. Classic. Their love is only postponed by conflict for a very short time, because it's a shitty flick and not that long. Of course the shit ship starts going down and Angelica escapes in a boat, but Willie is still on the deck. He jumps in, and manages to not be dragged with in the slipstream only to be saved by Angelica shortly after. Also in the boat, Nanny to Willie, who, in a twist of Freudian proportions, we realize that the Nanny who raised William and gave him all the love she would've given to her lost daughter is, in fact, and you may have guessed it, the mother of Angelica. Birth mother. And nanny of Willie. With whom Angelica is in mad and passionate and reciprocated love. This element is disturbing at best, but is not explained or touched upon in any way. And they all live happily ever after. Magnifique!

The guy on the right is never explained, but clearly he's seen some shit. 

Let me open the post plot analysis with two positive points: They didn't include an 'I'm the King/prince/duke/other royalty of the world!' bit, which I found very pleasing. They also saved us from embarrassment by not doing the whole floating on a plank and somebody not being able to fit on there shindig. Thus concludes the positives. The rest was shit. I don't know where to start even. So let's go with the voices. For some reason the travesty that was Kis Vuk had managed to attract at least a few larger names. Bill Nighy, Miranda Richardson, Sienna Miller. All names more than 2 people in the world will recognize. In Titanic it was pretty clear they had hit the local mall asking everybody who passed if they could do a voice. 'But surely doing a voice is pretty easy?' you could very well be thinking now. I know, because I have had the same thought several times in my life. I, as opposed to people in this movie, however, also has an internal mechanism that tells me it only seems easy because I don't have a fucking clue what I'm talking about. The voices here were crap, I think is what I'm trying to point out. Even crappy Saturday morning cartoons have better voices than this. They were annoying.

Gaston and Willie are buds, but not really. Or perhaps they are. It's not really clear. 

As for the animation itself, it was pretty iffy. 3 minutes in, I had seen the same little 3 second bit used three times already, and that kind of laid the groundwork. We were treated to a montage in the middle of this, in which we saw scenes from the previous 30 minutes, as if we had forgotten the extremely simplistic love story already. One of the scenes in the flashback montage was literally the scene in which Willie sits down to flashback. Amazing. Also in the mix were some exterior long shots of the Titanic sailing about it's merry way. These pans were clearly CG as opposed to standard animation for the bulk of the film. That's all good. It was decently done. But it was pointless and just thrown in because somebody got a hard on rigging a cam around a model of a boat and clicking play. Still I guess it's nitpicking. But if I can't nitpick, what the fuck am I here for? Besides nitpicking, these movies would literally end me.

Willie, ever the hero, jumps ship with a kid in his manly arms.

Talking animals. This is as hard a feat to pull off, as kids that aren't annoying in movies/series. In animation it's considerably easier, and yet still it's done for shit in this. There is a party in the animal quarters one night, and of course that means a dog has to do a rap in, what can only be described as, the most white boy ghetto attire and attitude ever shown in mainstream media. Followed by a Mexican mouse trio playing indigenous La Cucaracha style shit for a while. To top this off, we get to see two Dalmatians eating a string of sausages from each end until they end up nearly kissing. To top THAT off, there are cats playing instruments. Disney rip offs #4, #5 and #6 in one scene. New record! Of course these animals aren't questioned by any of the humans. And they have access to any food item for the party, yet moments later the smallest mouse and his parents are starving and helped to a piece of bread by Angelica – no questions asked. I guess it all worked out, because most of the animals were saved I think.

The kid apparently didn't make it, because when they haul Willie, the kid is nowhere to be seen. Presumably he just needed to be seen rescuing a kid for it to stick. 

In the final boat were Angelica, her boyfriend and his nanny/Angelica's mother, along with the detective, the first officer, some weird guy nobody has seen before and then the thief lady and her two sidekicks, who were allowed to escape. Yes, the detective and the three people he chased in the same boat, with no consequences. As they row past the almost lifeless Willie floating in the water, the first officer insists they are already over capacity, but every time a character is show in the boat, they are seen with tons of space around them. The first officer wants to just leave people. Super. Could be movie tricks, I guess. No wait...

Drowning animals. It's a thing that probably also happened. 
The end credits roll after a solid 75 minutes of bemused boredom. I shut the movie off, but my media center informs me I am not done watching this movie. Puzzled, I resume it only to learn there are 15 minutes worth of credits for this travesty all of which are accompanied by the same music that played during the montage and, if you can actually believe this, also joined by scenes from the movie. As in pretty much just the montage over again. 15 minutes of repeat scenes from a 75 minute movie? It doesn't even make sense on paper. And then there is the eclipse in the title. Like we're somehow supposed to feel a sense of grandeur or larger than life potential. Titanic... it's a thing that happened but this movie totally makes it better? Titanic... yes we know but here is a movie about it that spits raw? Titanic... Because you deserve something better and here it is! The movie is Italian, so perhaps that's why? I can't say for sure. I just can't. 

Yes. The production company for this was apparently set up just for this movie. They have no other titles to their name. +1 for originality. 

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