Titanic II

Well, not a lot of it (clearly), but enough to rent out the Queen Mary, hire a bunch of random extras from a Greyhound bus station, and pay some kit with a Commodore C64 to slap together a few CGI "effects". Better movies have been made for much less money, and that is both sad and infuriating.

Before even getting to the plot, such as I was able to piece together, some attention needs to be paid to the production values, if you can call them that.

No attention was paid at all to continuity, some exterior scenes and establishing shots use the 1936-vintage Queen Mary, moored in Long Beach, CA; while other outside scenes utilize some of the most god-awful CGI animation I've ever seen, which appears to depict the 1912-vintage Titanic. The ship shifts from a '30s three funnel liner to a pre-WWI four funnel liner and back again multiple times, the colors of the funnels even changes between red and yellow and the name sometimes disappears from the bow.

The permanent rock breakwater surrounding the Queen Mary can bee seen in some parts where the ship is supposed to be out at sea, along with glimpses of the Long Beach skyline in a few parts. No attempt at all was made to disguise the fact that the location ship never left port.

Interiors were filmed in either rented motel rooms, office elevator lobbies, or the main concourse in a suburban shopping mall. The engine room scenes are clearly a concrete basement with air conditioning equipment.

Extras in "action" scenes either stumble around aimlessly with no expression or intentionally trip over their own feet. All sound effects, including screaming, were added post production with no cause visible.

Now, back to the plot. Its bad. Like flimsy soft core porno bad. Some millionaire has financed the construction of an exact replica of the Titanic, which has set out on its maiden voyage from New York in 2012, on the 100th anniversary of the original. In a shocking coincidence, global warming simultaneously causes a massive ice sheet to break off from Greenland and drift toward the ship. Oh, and a tsunami. A massive, massive tsunami was caused somehow and is actually propelling the iceberg toward the ship at greater than the speed of sound. Yes, that fast. Also, only the ship is endangered and not all of Europe and North America, as might be expected from a tsunami of such biblical proportions. Part way through the movie, the actors appear to lose interest in the iceberg threat, and it is forgotten and replaced solely with the tsunami, which doesn't capsize the ship, but merely damages the hull in the same place as the original Titanic. Also, it destroys half the lifeboats- that is one smart killer wave.

I was really hoping this would be one of those campy movies that are so bad their almost good and can be appreciated ironically as unintentional comedy, but "Titanic 2" is just too bad even for that. This movie has no redeeming features whatsoever and is merely a colossal waste of time and resources. All copies of this film should be collected and shot into the sun, lest future generations find them and judge our civilization based on this affront to all taste and decency.

I'm just glad I watched this as a free bootleg on the Internet, if I had actually paid to buy or rent this, I would probably be setting something on fire right now.

The opening credits were fairly sparse and went by nicely, and the ending credits had many words and names. I noticed most of the words were also spelled correctly. In between the beginning and ending credits there was a bunch of stuff that really could have been cut from the movie. Many of the scenes had people in them, and were in color. They exist in a sort of Adventure Time universe where reality is constantly changing - either that or the plot make no sense. No spoilers here, it's what the title implies: ship driving around the ocean, bashes into a big hunk of ice while frantically driving away from it, and hilarity ensues. If this was a high school project, I would say it deserved at least a B. As long as it wasn't a senior high school project.

Funniest quote: "The lifeboats are death traps!" - said by a guy in a chopper who obviously knew this in advance.

Be warned that this is probably the worst movie ever made. At least it gave a good actor, Bruce Davison, employment. Nice concept, but so poorly made that you understand immediately that the makers knew zero about the 1912 Titanic and cared even less. With an obvious low budget, the movie made use of the 1930's Queen Mary permanently moored at Long Beach, CA. But, 1912 maritime design is very different from 1930s maritime design as was White Star Line, (Titanic), to Cunard Line, (Queen Mary). Shots included the sea wall enclosing the Queen Mary, rust on the railings of this "brand new Titanic II", and red funnels when the original Titanic had yellow funnels, (which they corrected within the movie and then went back to red funnels). Some scenes showed the ship with three funnels, some scenes she had four funnels. One of the best, laughable scenes was the cast running down into the "engine room" with concrete walls!!!? The Titanic II sailed with the name emblazoned on it's bow, then the name was gone, then it was back again? Where were the continuity people? Or could they not afford to employ them. The score even had slight reminisces of the movie Titanic's score in a shameful attempt to piggy-back on the success of the James Cameron movie. Gives new meaning to unoriginal and predictable. Do yourself a favor. Skip this movie. It's not even good trash.

I think my title says it all - this alleged movie is so inept, so cheaply made and so poorly written and acted that I'm not sure anyone could find nice things to say about it. I could almost understand this blatant rip-off of James Cameron's film if it had been made in 1997 or 1998; at that time, all you had to do was to say "Titanic" and people automatically reached for their wallets. But this is thirteen years later, and there's just no excuse for what is on the screen here. Horrendous CG (the birds in 'Birdemic' are masterpieces compared to some of what's in 'Titanic II'), goshawful acting (the guy who played Maine should have been billed as Ed Wooden), and a general contempt for the audience make this one a must-miss. On the evidence of this film, inmates are definitely running The Asylum.

This has to be one of the best worst films of all time. I have seen better special effects in Boris Karloff films and that is when Boris Karloff was a young man. Some of the iceberg scenes must have been shot by somebody in a bathtub/Jacuzzi having a few jars, spilled his/her ice cubes and then took a few snaps with a mobile phone. I am delighted I saw this film, I am getting great 'mileage' out of reading the reviews to my wife, I have to stop every now and again of course because the pain in our sides from uncontrolled laughing is nearly as bad as having appendicitis. I always thought Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and Gerry Lewis starred in some of the funniest movies ever made, I was right up until now. I hope your readers find this review helpful.