Titanic: The Animated Movie (2001)

Kids have it so easy; they are so catered to and so convenienced. They have their own TV networks, clothing lines, toy stores bigger than most grocery stores and book depositories full of nothing but Jonas Brothers action-adventure stories.

In my day, there were just Garanimals. And the Hardy Boys.

No surprise that there have been movies made just for kids. Well, of COURSE there are - Walt Disney would be out of a job otherwise. And so would Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker.

...or maybe not.

Because leave us to face facts: for every topic that is usually reserved for grown-ups (war, death, taxes, sexuality, natural disasters), there have been at least many dozen or so cartoon spins on same, at the very least. After all, how many times have we seen Bugs Bunny get drafted, survive an earthquake or put on a dress?

I remember growing up and watching cartoons about World War II, starving 1890s prospectors, The American Revolution, Nazis, innumerable hunting seasons....

But to the credit of Warner Bros., Walter Lantz, TerryToons and all the others, I had never seen a cartoon that dealt with the wreck and sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic.

Think about it a second: who in their right mind could or would make a kid's cartoon about one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history, with a human toll of over 1500 people?

The answer is Titanic Cartoons of Italy.

Titanic: The Animated Movie (or Titanic: The Legend Goes On..., or Titanic: La leggenda continua... - I know, I know...multiple titles, always a good sign) does indeed deal with the R.M.S. Titanic, its maiden voyage and the circumstances leading up to its sinking.

Oh: and did I mention the talking animals?

We have something here that is not only an unseemly topic for a kid's movie but something that may very well put a damper on any and all future animated products ever to come from a foreign country. I mean, I watch Japanese anime and think nothing of it. This is something that is very much more harmful - like Grave of the Fireflies, only done by someone without an inkling of conscious talent, irony or referential content.

The plot? Are you sure? Well, okay: this is an animated (surprise) retelling of the worst passenger ship disaster in history, which kinda/sorta resembles the dynamic demonstrated in James Cameron's little movie about a boat and a piece of ice. In this version, love blossoms between the upper-class Sir William and the blue-collar Angelica, who is hoping to find romance in America in spite of her nasty stepmother and even-nastier step-sisters.

Uh...isn't that from Cinderella...oh never mind.

At the same time, there are also a number of animal passengers, including talking dogs (some of which rap), cats and mice (with varying accents), all of whom are also looking forward to arriving in the New World. Then we also have a trio of jewel thieves, a detective, a ship-board singer who is WAY too sexy for a kid's movie (think Jessica Rabbit and you're there), the ship's captain, and so on. All of them bide their time, sing a song or two, fall in love, try to steal stuff and otherwise "comically" or "romantically" pass the time until the animators manage to draw an iceberg for their ship to run into.

You know what? Writer/director Camillo Teti caught glimpses of Titanic as pics and ideas for the Titanic from Hollywood came out, and scrounged together something that would make all the kiddies, who would otherwise be bored out of their wits with the sure-to-be long-and-boring Cameron product a film they could completely get into and - this is the important part - not even get traumatized over because the description for this movie goes to great lengths to assure the viewer that "As it happened in the real story, the Titanic will hit the iceberg but only to determine the beginning of a new life full of hope for everybody!! Filled with hilarious antics, fun music and enchanting characters this movie is sure to be a hit with the entire family!"

...What?

See what happened there - Teti went the Disney route and just changed the story for their core audience. Remember Pocahontas? I think maybe our writer/director saw that a few times for reassurance of purpose. Or maybe he showed Pocahontas to all his animators to prove to them his project didn't necessarily have to hold true to its source.

In fact, this movie starts at the END of the Titanic's sinking, showing people (and animals) in lifeboats, looking around in the still waters for any survivors who happen to be floating around, save for the fact that no one is, in fact, floating around.

[STUDIO SUIT] Because don'tcha know that'd be just too much for the kiddies to take in, you know, and we can't make the kids upset because then they won't want to watch our little project here, you know, and that means loss of revenue then we won't be able to get funding for our sequel Titanic 2: Happy Boat Time! [/STUDIO SUIT]

The talking animal thing wouldn't really have been that big of a thing to me - after all, they were tolerable enough in Bambi, Cinderella, The Lion King and those American Tail flicks - but did we really need to have a rapping terrier dressed in sweats and a ball cap, complete with his own turntable? Did we need to have Mexican mice in sombreros and ponchos talking like Speedy Gonzales? Did we need to have other mice dressed in proper British clothes, only to talk like Fievel from the aforementioned American Tail? Did we need any of that? Really? And do they offer anything to the plot? At all? Besides filler?

Not that a film like this could be hurt by filler. A kid's movie that focuses on a love story is nothing new but this one doesn't even do anything interesting with what they have. I don't care if the crazy in-love kids in question look like Princess Ariel and that blind knight from Quest for Camelot; the love story is so boring and centers on such dull, uninteresting characters that Teti must have rightly guessed that jewel thieves and talking/singing animals could only help the situation. And he was only partially right: they pad out things but only in the way that sawdust pads out bread dough.

Seventy-two minutes. This thing is seventy-two minutes long. Considerably shorter than Cameron's version, but if you end up watching Titanic: The Animated Movie, it will feel like three hours-plus, I guarantee you.

Things wrap around so that the beginning lifeboat scene also ends the film and then we get a few cards that describe what happened to the survivors...or in this case, EVERYBODY. Then it's over. That's it. The credits start and everything.

Yeah.

Even writing about this movie makes my head hurt. Titanic: The Animated Movie is one of the worst ideas for a movie ever, let alone a kid's movie. I know that there are movies which are animated and are not necessarily for youngsters. Anime movies are a good example. THIS flick, however, all but says that it's meant for kids with its non-violent ending, its slapstick characters, its talking animals, and songs. But:

THIS IS A CARTOON ABOUT THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC.

This is not meant for kids. This is not meant for adults. This is not meant for Italians. This is not meant for any other nationalities. This is not meant for animal lovers. This is not meant for animals themselves. This is not meant for anything or anybody. Helen Keller would walk out on this movie. If this movie were being shown on the R.M.S. Titanic, it would have gotten the passengers to abandon ship long before the iceberg hit.

And the worst part of the thing? It will force you to not take this tragedy seriously. I mean, look at what they did with it! Turned it into a cartoon - a bad cartoon that no one will enjoy watching. Even if this were a good movie it would be tainted by the fact that:

THIS IS A CARTOON ABOUT THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC.

Kids today, like I said, get everything. Even their own takes on the world's worst disasters. And I know that youth nowadays are more jaded to the death and destruction that surrounds them. Most all of them get cable and watch movies far above the MPAA ratings allowance. They find ways, though. They let the evening news permeate through their sponge-like brains. They get inundated with innuendo, racial slurs, prejudices and violence of network and cable TV. They are able to watch documentaries about serial killers, mass murderers, genocide, man's daily cruelty to man and incredible nastiness under the guise of "hey it's okay - it's for the education of humanity as a whole". However, something like Titanic: The Animated Movie is far worse than any of that because of the fact that it is so sugar-coated, so glossed over and so talking animal cutesy-poo that NOTHING comes through. It's in bad taste from the get-go, sure, but if you're going to tell a tale like that, why cop out?

And besides which, in 2001, kids were pretty much thoroughly ready to accept the human toll of death and other such like the Titanic's sinking. So who, then, was this movie made for? The overly-sensitive? The politically-correct who demanded that their sheltered little darlings be spared the gory details? Those poor 100+ year-old survivors who didn't want to be reminded of what they went through...or in this case, horrified that what they went through was overshadowed with bad slapstick routines and rapping terriers?

Teti, who has directed other less-appalling films like Bye Bye Vietnam, Cobra Mission 2 and Navigators of the Space, was given an opportunity here and he failed at it. Titanic: The Animated Movie probably couldn't have ended up as anything more or less than a failure for all involved. That it got released is just another example that humans as a whole are experts in bad judgment.

This movie, however, proves that humans are also experts in exercising bad taste, poor quality and extremely under-developed social value.

...and wrapping it all up in talking animals.