Movies

There definitely are some dead spots. Too much time is spent looking for the ship. The three sided romance goes nowhere and could have been deleted. The entire operation of simply pumping foam, attaching gas bags, and exploding the Titanic off the bottom throws credibility out the window. Nevertheless, Richard Jordan and Jason Robards give it their best, despite minimal character development. The real star however is the Titanic model, which of course doesn't appear until past the half way point of the film. If you persevere until then, your imagination will be rewarded. Definitely watchable if you have enough patience. - MERK.

Inexplicably bad adaption of Clive Cussler's novel, the failure of this movie may be in its focus on an actual historical event. Most of Cussler's novels revolve around odd sinkings and lost-at-sea type events: perhaps this movie couldn't stand up to the scrutiny that accompanies any Titanic -based project. Richard Jordan is badly miscast (as is Jason Robards). Cussler's novels would make excellent Bond-type big budget movies in the right hands, but here Jerry Jameson and the writers managed to suck anything interesting out of Cussler's entertaining original work.

I suppose RAISE THE TITANIC is a better sequel than those rubbish 'TITANIC 2' B-movies that have come out over the years. This film is an adaptation of a Clive Cussler novel and follows the efforts of a salvage team to lift the wreck of the infamous cruise liner from the depths. The reason for this plot involves a made-up element and is actually cleverly written, with a great deal of thought having gone into the premise, which I appreciated it. Unfortunately the film forgets to incorporate any kind of suspense or thrills or character depth into the running time, so it's left feeling more like a mock documentary exploring the technicalities of such a huge job. It does boast some excellent special effects work, with some fantastic miniatures that really convince, and from a technical viewpoint I found it quite interesting.