Titanic 2

Yes, this exists.

So your first reaction has got to be "they made a Titanic 2??"  I guess I should explain.  James Cameron and 20th Century Fox and everybody else who hold the rights to the Academy Award winning 1997 "Titanic"* have absolutely nothing at all to do with this semi-sequel.  Instead of those creators, this was made by the legendary low-budget film company, The Asylum Home Entertainment, creators of everybody's favorite rip-off titles for Hollywood Blockbusters.  These are the guys who made "Transmorphers", "100 Million BC", "The Da Vinci Treasure", and "Snakes on a Train".  They also make original movies such as the incomparable work of cinematic genius that is "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus" - soon to have a sequel in "Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus"!  You can tell that these guys are serious professionals in the art of filmmaking, can't you?  Since Titanic was a real ship and cannot be trademarked intellectual property, the Asylum is legally allowed to name any movie they want "Titanic".  But why have a "Titanic" movie, when you can have "Titanic 2"?

The story has nothing to do with "Titanic 1" either.  The plot here is that its the year 2012, and a super rich dude decides to rebuild the Titanic just in time for the ship's 100 year anniversary.  What do you call this new ship?  Titanic 2 - of course!  But we've improved the thing, making it completely unsinkable... we mean it this time!  So the ship is on its maiden voyage (from New York to London, the reverse of Titanic 1), when all of sudden the predictable disaster occurs.  Everything goes "The Day After Tomorrow" and an 800 mile-per-hour tsunami rushes down, carrying a whole iceberg with it.  You thought an iceberg was bad?  Well how about one going more than double the speed of sound!  To nobody's surprise, "Titanic 2" is about to sink, and all its passengers are doomed**.  Sounds like wonderful cheesy entertainment, doesn't it?

I'm sorry to say... things aren't that simple.  This movie blows.

Yeah, I know I'm reviewing a movie called "Titanic 2", okay.  I know this thing is by definition the dumbest shit ever.  But even so - it shouldn't be boring!  This is boring.  The Asylum is run by horrible amateurs with pathetic budgets, but even a complete and total lack of competency in the art of film shouldn't make "Titanic 2" boring.  This should be one of the funnest and most hilarious pieces of garbage I've ever seen... instead its just some really low budget disaster movie.  This is about the same quality of entertainment as a bad made for TV movie.  Even SciFi makes more entertaining movies than this.  This movie is so bad there's no reason to see it beyond the badge of honor that is "I've seen Titanic 2".

Let me explain what "Titanic 2" should have been:  "Sherlock Holmes".  Not the Guy Ritchie "Sherlock Holmes" that I reviewed back in December, no, the Asylum's "Sherlock Holmes".  Remember the copyright on the Sherlock Holmes character ran out back in the 70s I think, so anybody on Earth can do can anything they want with the character.  The Asylum jumped right on that and made a movie where Sherlock Holmes fights a robot T-Rex.  That's all I need to say:  Sherlock Holmes fights a robot T-Rex.  Its the stupidest idea for a movie ever in the history of the world!  But its so awesome.  The Cinema Snob, lord of the obscure B-movies, has a full review of that little gem, I suggest you give "Sherlock Holmes" a try.

So what is "Titanic 2"?  It definitely doesn't have T-Rexes, that's a mark against it.  As a matter of fact, the movie really holds back, I think.  They know they can't film the stuff James Cameron made, so they instead avoid showing much of anything at all, meaning that most of the movie takes place in a hallway.  That's not good.  When a movie is so poorly made that the helicopters are actually computer graphics superimposed on stock footage because the company can't afford to rent real helicopters, you aren't making art anymore.  That's the point where you brainstorm for the dumbest ideas you can imagine, and then make it a reality.  Your movie has the ship is listing at a 45 degree angle one scene, then completely level in another.  You can't afford to film in a real cruise liner, so the actual interiors of this ship are obviously a hotel.  They can't afford to show much of the lifeboats (or life-minisubmarines) so they pretend that an elevator is door to the lifeboat.  There's nothing you can do to save this picture, don't try.

Asylum, this was the time you go all out and make the dumbest movie you possibly could.  The very words "Titanic 2" are in the ballpark... but you need more in a movie than a title.  The thing just takes itself too seriously.  Nobody in this movie seems aware of the irony of the situation.  Nobody says "Titanic 2 is sinking!  ...Why didn't we see this coming?"  That's the kind of humorous tone this movie needed.  Instead somebody just says "looks like history is repeating itself"... snore.

What makes a great B-movie is the very opposite of a great A-movie.  The acting needs to be bad - the acting here is so-so, completely forgettable.  The effects need to be stunningly terrible - the effects here are that, but there aren't enough goofs.  Yeah there's a shot were you can see a phantom city outside the window of what is supposed to be a ship in the middle of the Atlantic, but its a rare instance.  There were only two times in this movie where I actually laughed... I was falling asleep the rest of the time.  Finally the concept needs to be so preposterous that simply by describing it you start to laugh.  This concept of a Titanic 2 is silly, but not silly enough.  It just capsizes, that's been done.  How about it falling into the Bermuda Triangle, traveling into a time warp, and then crashing into the real Titanic?  Or it gets devoured by an undersea Kraken thing - make the whole movie a rip-off of the awesome  movie "Deep Rising".  And if you can't do any of those things, just include lines so fantastically bad they become Internet phenomenas.

Asylum, you aren't making a thrilling action movie, you physically are incapable of that.  You need to make this a comedy.

I feel like there's really wasted potential here.  "Titanic 1" was a great movie, despite what some say, I still maintain that.  But it was so ripe for lampooning.  Even thirteen years later, that movie's plot is such comedy gold for an "Airplane!"-style parody.  There's so much sapiness, silly romance, and over-the-top drama from Cameron's movie that we could have hours of entertainment here.  Even if you just remade the movie with a fraction of the budget (essentially what happened here), the results would be so cheesy and poorly constructed that I'd would be doubled-over on the floor.  Just imagine how awesome this movie would have been if they had Billy Zane, Cal from the original?

Oh whatever... I'm honestly disappointed.  Oh well.  Don't see "Titanic 2", that's all I need to say here.  I'm just pointed out that this movie exists.  I guess we should be glad that we live in a time where major Academy Award winning movies can get unrelated B-movie sequels. Maybe "Titanic 3" will be better...

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* From now, I declare that James Cameron's "Titanic" will forever be known as "Titanic 1".  Try it when talking to your family and friends.  They'll immediately want to know what you're talking about, and now you have a whole topic of conservation.  "Titanic 2", I just love saying that.

** How did this ship obtain insurance?   Naming your vessel after the most famous naval disaster in history doesn't exactly give you with a feeling of safety does it?  You can tell the passengers are nervous too because of the bored expressions on all the extras' faces