TITANIC 3D: The Blockbuster Made Me Cry (Again)

New Zealand audiences will have the opportunity to experience TITANIC on the big screen all over again when its re-released in cinemas on April 5th, in 3D. After 15 years since it was first released, TITANIC still holds up as an incredible motion-picture experience. I took my brother to see it. He is 9 years old. The same age I was when I went to see it in 1997. And as I looked over at him during the film, I saw my 9 year old self. A little boy mouth agape watching the disaster that took too many souls to their watery grave.

The tickets to the TITANIC 3D premiere looked great, like the real thing.
Not that you would want a *real* one.

TITANIC, in spite of its howling problems, will always have a special place in movie history. It was the highest-grossest film of all time, launched the careers of two of our most beloved movie stars and earned a staggering 11 Oscars. TITANIC is Hollywood. TITANIC is movie magic. For the simple reason that its director James Cameron knew exactly how to make an unimaginable tragedy palatable for mainstream audiences with his sweeping romance and his ground-breaking use of visual effects to re-create the ill-fated maiden voyage.

Walking the red carpet with my brother (right).
Ushers made to look like the ship's crew.

TITANIC maybe the only movie to be a great movie and a bad movie. Somehow it's both. There's plenty of reasons why it was never nominated for Best Screenplay though. The honking cliches, broad characterizations, laughable dialogue, offensive ethnic stereotypes and silly plot machinations don't matter. In the end, I cry. I cry every time actually. The film works. It just works. If a film moves you to tears, you have to overlook its bad writing and that awful performance by Billy Zane.

Go see it. Go see it again. This is a film that demands to be re-released in cinemas. This time its in 3D, and that's not a bad thing.