hyped garbage

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

O.K., so it might be a tad worse than some other Titanic films, and 'A Night to Remember' may be to 'S.O.S. Titanic' what '2001: A Space Odyssey' is to 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'. But remember how badly directed James Cameron's 1997 'Titanic' was, and bear in mind how badly 'Raise the Titanic' flopped at the box office in 1980. What I'm trying to say is, look at the better things attributed to 'S.O.S Titanic', like David Warner's awesome performance as schoolteacher Lawrence Beesley, who, in 1912, wrote the book 'The Loss of the S.S. Titanic', which stands as one of the most authentic and realistic eyewitness accounts ever written about any disaster. Or how about Howard Blake's wonderful soundtrack, or Cloris Leachman, or Ian Holm as White Star Line president J. Bruce Ismay. And even better, the fact that the original 1979 Television version is superior to the edited theatrical release that many of you have seen. It may not be the best, but 'S.O.S. Titanic' is second only to 'A Night to Remember' when it comes to retelling the story of history's most famous ship.

With a good cast and an interesting concept of covering the four days before the sinking, I was hoping that this would be more then just another Titanic movie. Unfortunately the film turned into yet another Titanic movie despite its cast and somewhat original idea, the film fails to use both of these to any good effect.The cast, while a good one, fails to live up to the film's potential. David Janssen fails to be either convincing or very good at being John Jacob Astor as does Harry Andrews as Captain Smith. With the exception of Ian Holm as Ismay, most of the crew and first class passengers are cardboard characters who we've seen countless times in other Titanic films (Cloris Leachman's Molly Brown is a perfect example). The film's two interesting characters, David Warner's Lawrence Beesley and Susan Saint James' Leigh Goodwin aren't seen very much throughout the film and their relationship falling apart before the sinking and them coming back together on the Carpathia after the sinking is an interesting before and after analogy that should have been explored more.Outside of the actors, the films production values are another problem. Much of the film was shot aboard The Queen Mary and this is very much apparent. Watching the film one does not get the impression of being on the Titanic as one gets from the 1953 and 1997 films or the excellent 1958 film A Night To Remember. One instead gets the impression of being on the Queen Mary or in a hotel somewhere and not on board the titanic. The shots of the Titanic sinking look like they were shots from A Night To Remember that were colorized for the film an the rest of the Titianic shots are obviously models or the Queen Mary standing in, giving a low budget feel to the film.The film's writing is also lacking. Summed up, it took the names of Titianic passengers and then mangled fact and fiction together to create the mess that is the plot of the film. The writing fails t capture the spirit of those on the Titanic and once the ship sinks, one does not feel for the characters who have died or who have survived. If anything, the writing makes the Ismay character seem almost sympathetic when he chooses to climb into the empty seat on a lifeboat. the film is also full of errors on those who sailed on the ship including Violet Jessop,w ho is portrayed an old woman in the film instead of being in her late twenties as she was in real life.All together, S.O.S. Titanic is just an average film in general and an average film about the Titanic. It fails to not only capture the spirit of the Titanic story, but everything we have come to expect from the films on the sinking. This film is for die-hard titanic buffs only because I am sure the average person would simply lose interest quickly.

This is a very underrated film. If you look unbiasedly at it you can see where James Cameron got his inspiration, as some scenes of his Titanic are identical to this version. This is a well crafted film that tries to tightly stick to the point. It is very interesting that David Warner features prominantly in this version & in Cameron's. Why??? This film is very atmospheric & authentic, but unlike Cameron's version, it doesn't have the emotive sentimentality & glamour. Overall, this is an intelligent informative family film, for people who appreciate qualities other than special effects.

This movie was better than some and worse than others. It was interesting to see the second class point of view, but two major errors in the movie made it difficult for me to take the rest of it too seriously.At the start, when the Carpathia arrives, we see that Captain Rostron has made NO preparations until they've reached the scene. Dramatic license is not adequate reason to show Rostron as incompetent. A little later on, the big Sunday is shown as April 12 rather than April 14. I've made typos myself, but this was a bad one.