The same historical event that inspired directorJames Cameron’sTitanic, one of film’s greatest achievements, also inspired one of the worst films ever made. Such a descriptor is extreme by its nature and coveted by such iconic stinkers asThe Room,Manos: The Hands of Fate, andPlan 9 from Outer Space. There’s a key difference withTitanic: The Legend Goes On, an Italian film released in 2000: this monstrosity earns plenty of mockery but none of the reverse affection that objectively poor films can somehow create. There will beno cult screeningsofTitanic: The Legend Goes Onor absurd quotes integrated into daily life.Titanic: The Legend Goes Onis too heinous for such fond pleasures — and even worse, it’s boring.
From that perspective, “heinous” is almost too harsh. Yet what reads like some severely underpaid marketing intern’s recipe for a fever dream — a children’s movie about theTitaniccomplete with helpful talking animals, multiple meaningless side plots, and a rapping dog — is instead cinematic carnage. Toss in the blatant ripoffs — a Cameron, Disney, andDon Bluthtrifecta — and a good chunk of historical inaccuracy, and boom. There’s not a bone of originality in this offense against humankind. I watchedTitanic: The Legend Goes Onfor science, but this movie comes from a world where universal truths like science don’t exist. Lord protect us.
It’s hard to make movies, period. Approaching the creators of poor ones in good faith is only fair.Titanic: The Legend Goes Onwas directed and co-written byCamillo Teti,an Italian filmmaker with a Turner Classic Movies pageand an assistant production manager credit forSergio Leone’sOnce Upon a Time in the West. Sadly for Teti, when it comes toThe Legend Goes On, even the title is a bad omen. “Goes On” sounds suspiciously like aCeline Dionlawsuit waiting to happen.
For some reason, American audiences were graced withtwo different cutsofThe Legend Goes On. The shorter, clocking in at just under an hour, is the worst offender. This version opens with the elephant in the room:the RMS Titanic’s tragic sinking. The circumstance should be harrowing, but protagonist Angelica (Lisa Russo) rows her lifeboat with a somber expression that’s inhuman enough to call theuncanny valleyto mind. In general,Titanic: The Legend Goes On’s animation is poor, dropping frames like it’s a dated computer faced with a 60 FPS video game. Animators also deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially where budget restrictions are concerned, yet the choppy repetition is inescapable.
RELATED:This Is the Best “So Bad, It’s Good” Movie (And It’s Not ‘The Room’)
This is where I’m beholden to mention the animals. A cast of dogs, mice, a cat, and seagulls eat up as much screen time as the humans. Alongside the humans' campy expressions of horror, the opening sequence highlights the dogs' crying, whimpering faces as they watch theTitanicmeet its demise. The sinking itself mimics James Cameron’s film without any of the pathos. This actual disaster versus Cameron’s feels like a toddler’s drawing compared toClaude Monet. And this is the movie’s first five minutes. Cue the “this is fine” dog-surrounded-by-fire meme.
‘Titanic: The Legend Goes On’ Tries To Copy Brilliance and Fails
Events then flash back to Angelica’s arrival at the dockedTitanicalongside her evil stepmother Gertrude (Giselle Matthews) and equally evil stepsisters Bernice (Silva Benton) and Hortense (Bianca Alessandra Ara). Angelica works as a servant for the melodramatically hateful trio, in case the Cinderella archetype isn’t completely obvious. In private, Angelica longs to meet her missing birth mother. Don’t worry, she hasa special blue locket with her mother’s photo hidden inside. Pardon me, I’m starting a conference call with Don Bluth and James Cameron for copyright infringement. Angelica’s flowing red hair just seals the deal.
Once Angelica’s onboard theTitanic, she bumps into William (Mark Thompson-Ashworth), the rich English guy to her impoverished American. It doesn’t matter that William exhibits the personality of a log and the looks of every typical frat boy. They fall in love thanks to heterosexual movie logic. When they dance in the sunset’s glow and William professes he can’t live without Angelica, he acknowledges he doesn’t know her name. Slow your roll, sir!This ham-fisted Titanic “love story"comes complete with Angelica dressing up for a fancy dinner in a borrowed dress, her descending a staircase as William stares at her agog, and her stepfamily trying to prevent the marriage. Because swapping Jack and Rose’s genders and social hierarchy will hide the resemblance. Uh-huh.
The other unfortunate humans stuck in this cast include William’s unnamed maid (Susan Spifford); Winnie (uncredited), a lady whose Southern-accented dog helps her hunt for rich husbands; Gaston (Jacques Stany), William’s effusively French secretary who romantically pursues Molly (Pat Starke), a singer who only knows one ballad; jewel thief Corynthia Meanstreak (Veronica Wells) and herDumb and Dumber-esquehenchmen duo; and Sam (Mickey Knox), a detective trying to catch said thieves who’s dressed exactly like Sherlock Holmes down to the pipe.
Titanic: The Legend Goes On’s misguided attempts at a historical tragedy fare no better. A Yiddish-coded mouse family with ambiguous European accents joins the animals hanging out in third class. The youngest, a boy who absolutely isn’t Fievel fromAn American Tail, bears witness to Fritz the dog (Gregory Snegoff) breaking out into a rap number as mindbogglingly sudden as a slasher villain jump scare. In the shorter cut of the film, Fritz’s anachronistic rap about being the boss of the ship is inexplicably replaced with a track called “Party Time.” Yes, let’s teach children that everyone partied it up aboard theTitanic.It’s a monstrosity that must be seen to be believed, and I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a hallucination. Oh, and a group of Mexican mice will later sing an egregiously racist tune.
‘Titanic: The Legend Goes On’ Is Incoherent at Best
At this point, presuming thatTitanic: The Legend Goes Onhas no flow or discernible point would be a correct hypothesis. Coherency? Balanced subplots? Nah. The script incorporates supporting characters as inorganicallyas the worst Mary Sue self-insert. Meandering subplots and menial things suck up the already short run time like a black hole. From a technical standpoint, the scene transitions harshly fade out with no establishment of a new space before the characters shriek dialogue. Shot constructions are either cluttered or empty. The dubbed English doesn’t sync with mouth movements.Not one iota of plot even relates to theTitanic; the ship’s crew and captain appear too briefly to count as more than cameos. Who has time for the interior lives and dramatic contributions of historical figures when there’s maladroit slapstick to be had!
When the iceberg appeared at forty-one minutes in, I did the unthinkable with aTitanicfeature and yelled “FINALLY, THANK YOU.” The ship’s sinking is the best sequence, yet no miracle of coherency occurs: the slapdash-quick editing lacks spatial awareness, tension, or emotion. Don’t worry, though, the animals survive and are guided to safety by dolphins. Angelica reunites with her mother, aka William’s nanny/maid, andTitanic: The Legend Goes Ongrants the resolution of its protagonist’s goals maybe one minute of screen time. Then the women rescue a drowning William. (How can it be copying whenJack-cough-William survives, right?) Everyone lives happily ever after, animals included. The film concludes with the mouse child crowing in a fourth-wall-breaking narration, “bye for now, and see you soon!” No, please never come to my home again.
What Are the Differences Between the Two Cuts?
As things stand,the uncut version of this Titanic movieis actually an improvement. An extra 15 to 20 minutes allows enough breathing room to smooth out some rough edges. Nevertheless, its pace is still — to use a horrible pun — glacial. The electronic score sounds like a classic Nintendo game, while the male Dalmatian says of his female mate, “she’s about to present me with some heirs.” The child actor flubs a line and declares “bleh,” while a crewman repeats “you can’t go through this way, don’t force me to resort to violence!” at least three times, like a chorus of hell beasts. Molly’s love ballad is different and includes the line “you’re in my blood”; ma’am, you are noJoni Mitchell. Otherwise, Angelica and William’s instant love and the multiple irreconcilable plots remain. Oh, and Fritz still raps. You can’t keep a good dog down.
Titanic: The Legend Goes Onwill never reach the heights ofThe Room. Few contenders for “worst movie ever” can. If you’re bored on a Friday night and in need of a flabbergasted guffaw that increases said boredom, however, it passes the suitability test. If nothing else,The Legend Goes Onreminds us all just how difficult it is to make a good movie. And it advises us that if you have the power to turn your bad crossover fan-fiction into an animated feature — just don’t.
