NOTE: This review is based on the UNCUT version, not the choppy American version.
Before I begin, I just want to say one thing: This movie IS a horrible piece of film and animation.
The characters are possibly the most unoriginal I've ever seen. How unoriginal? They blatantly steal characters from other movies! Our characters include a young girl who is forced into slavery by her evil stepmother and two selfish stepsisters, a la Cinderella, two bumbling Cockney-accented thugs are bossed into thievery by a white-haired lady in a fur coat, a la 101 Dalmations, and a family of vaguely Russian-accented mice that travel to America with the youngest one constantly getting into trouble a la America Tail. There are a few other characters in this movie that might also be rip-offs(a granny, a nanny, a French singer, etc.), and they all share the same blandness and one-dimensional movement throughout the movie.
The story is absolutely silly. It's basically Titanic with a lot more subplots that go nowhere. Our leads Angelica and William(switched from rich girl/poor boy to rich boy/poor girl) board the ship, fall in love at first sight, and somehow end up married by movie's end. In addition, we have subplots about Angelica's lost necklace and mother, a cat and a dog who terrorize the other animal passengers, a con artist who's trying to seduce a banker she thinks is rich, a Sherlock Holmes knockoff trying to track down thieves, and quite a few more that, to the film's credit, do get resolved, albeit rather sloppily. It's like the movie had 5 different writers writing different things and the Editor just copy/pasted everything into one script with no changes. The result is a mish-mash of stories that, although not as bad as Monster a Go-Go, still leads to a confusing mess.
Let's talk about the technical aspects, aka the sound, animation, and editing. It's all some of the worst I've ever seen. The animation is incredibly inconsistent, with some scenes almost looking three-dimensional and others looking like a three-frame Flash file! In addition, there's an assortment of animated goofs to keep an eye out for(a guy growing in size as he runs, two women walking in place, disappearing clothing, and, my favorite, one of the characters walking through a table!) The sound and dubbing is really bad as well, with none of the actors sounding interested in the least. Also, some scenes apparently didn't have dialog recorded as they simply REPEAT EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAID A MINUTE AGO! Conversations, reassurances, screams, etc. are all repeated several times in the movie by the main characters! Why didn't they just cut the scenes out? Because the editing is AWFUL! A lot of scenes are repeated over and over to fill in time and some scenes take place immediately after or on top of other scenes that have nothing to do with the context! My favorite is where they play the same scene of the Second Officer THREE TIMES in 10 seconds, with only slight and painfully obvious differences in the dialog! The writers don't care, the animators don't care, and the editor doesn't care. Sounds like a great movie to me...
As for the music, a lot of the soundtrack sounds like violins played in reverse all throughout the movie. It's not horrible, I guess, but strange. There are also a few songs(mostly generic tunes thrown in at the last minute), but there are two that REALLY stand out. First, there's the "You're In My Blood" song, which is probably the worst love song ever sung, even worse than most of the terrible modern pop songs you hear on the radio. Sample Lyrics: "You're in my blood, you're in my blood, you're in my blood, my bloooooooooOOOOOOOOooooaaad/So let's start this rite of love/WiiiiiiiiIIIIIIiiith love." Second, and this is the only reason most of you have heard of this movie, a RAPPING DOG! YES! A dog dressed in a Jersey, holding a boom box, dancing in front of a New York backdrop, singing a genre of music that won't be invented for 60 years! Why? What purpose does it have? Does it affect anything? Never explained. Comes out of nowhere, fades into the same nowhere, and is never brought up again! ...Well, that's one way to make a movie stand out...
Now, with all that in mind, this movie... is really fun to watch.
It does everything so wrong, cares so little, and insults so much intelligence, that it's actually a fascinating movie. You actually want to keep watching to see what bit of insanity occurs next! At the very least, you won't be bored by how strangely this movie was put together.
In addition, there are some good things about it as well. The design of the characters, for the most part, is rather good. Angelica almost looks like a Disney Princess. A lot of the shading, movement, and even some of the slapstick is well done and well timed, so it looks like at least some effort went into this. Finally, this movie does something better than Cameron's version: It explores the ship and passengers. While Cameron tried to focus solely on the cartoonish romance of Rose and Jack, with the other characters just shoved in, the movie does give time to show the stories of each passenger, even if they are sloppy. So, in a way, this movie did something better than Cameron. And yes, give it credit, this movie also understands that the sinking was a tragedy that took the lives of many. ...Barely.
In conclusion, this movie is a fun little train-wreck that is impossible to take seriously. If you're curious as to how badly an animation can be made without it being outright horrible or insulting, I'd recommend it. Just don't use it as a history lesson...
Before I begin, I just want to say one thing: This movie IS a horrible piece of film and animation.
The characters are possibly the most unoriginal I've ever seen. How unoriginal? They blatantly steal characters from other movies! Our characters include a young girl who is forced into slavery by her evil stepmother and two selfish stepsisters, a la Cinderella, two bumbling Cockney-accented thugs are bossed into thievery by a white-haired lady in a fur coat, a la 101 Dalmations, and a family of vaguely Russian-accented mice that travel to America with the youngest one constantly getting into trouble a la America Tail. There are a few other characters in this movie that might also be rip-offs(a granny, a nanny, a French singer, etc.), and they all share the same blandness and one-dimensional movement throughout the movie.
The story is absolutely silly. It's basically Titanic with a lot more subplots that go nowhere. Our leads Angelica and William(switched from rich girl/poor boy to rich boy/poor girl) board the ship, fall in love at first sight, and somehow end up married by movie's end. In addition, we have subplots about Angelica's lost necklace and mother, a cat and a dog who terrorize the other animal passengers, a con artist who's trying to seduce a banker she thinks is rich, a Sherlock Holmes knockoff trying to track down thieves, and quite a few more that, to the film's credit, do get resolved, albeit rather sloppily. It's like the movie had 5 different writers writing different things and the Editor just copy/pasted everything into one script with no changes. The result is a mish-mash of stories that, although not as bad as Monster a Go-Go, still leads to a confusing mess.
Let's talk about the technical aspects, aka the sound, animation, and editing. It's all some of the worst I've ever seen. The animation is incredibly inconsistent, with some scenes almost looking three-dimensional and others looking like a three-frame Flash file! In addition, there's an assortment of animated goofs to keep an eye out for(a guy growing in size as he runs, two women walking in place, disappearing clothing, and, my favorite, one of the characters walking through a table!) The sound and dubbing is really bad as well, with none of the actors sounding interested in the least. Also, some scenes apparently didn't have dialog recorded as they simply REPEAT EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAID A MINUTE AGO! Conversations, reassurances, screams, etc. are all repeated several times in the movie by the main characters! Why didn't they just cut the scenes out? Because the editing is AWFUL! A lot of scenes are repeated over and over to fill in time and some scenes take place immediately after or on top of other scenes that have nothing to do with the context! My favorite is where they play the same scene of the Second Officer THREE TIMES in 10 seconds, with only slight and painfully obvious differences in the dialog! The writers don't care, the animators don't care, and the editor doesn't care. Sounds like a great movie to me...
As for the music, a lot of the soundtrack sounds like violins played in reverse all throughout the movie. It's not horrible, I guess, but strange. There are also a few songs(mostly generic tunes thrown in at the last minute), but there are two that REALLY stand out. First, there's the "You're In My Blood" song, which is probably the worst love song ever sung, even worse than most of the terrible modern pop songs you hear on the radio. Sample Lyrics: "You're in my blood, you're in my blood, you're in my blood, my bloooooooooOOOOOOOOooooaaad/So let's start this rite of love/WiiiiiiiiIIIIIIiiith love." Second, and this is the only reason most of you have heard of this movie, a RAPPING DOG! YES! A dog dressed in a Jersey, holding a boom box, dancing in front of a New York backdrop, singing a genre of music that won't be invented for 60 years! Why? What purpose does it have? Does it affect anything? Never explained. Comes out of nowhere, fades into the same nowhere, and is never brought up again! ...Well, that's one way to make a movie stand out...
Now, with all that in mind, this movie... is really fun to watch.
It does everything so wrong, cares so little, and insults so much intelligence, that it's actually a fascinating movie. You actually want to keep watching to see what bit of insanity occurs next! At the very least, you won't be bored by how strangely this movie was put together.
In addition, there are some good things about it as well. The design of the characters, for the most part, is rather good. Angelica almost looks like a Disney Princess. A lot of the shading, movement, and even some of the slapstick is well done and well timed, so it looks like at least some effort went into this. Finally, this movie does something better than Cameron's version: It explores the ship and passengers. While Cameron tried to focus solely on the cartoonish romance of Rose and Jack, with the other characters just shoved in, the movie does give time to show the stories of each passenger, even if they are sloppy. So, in a way, this movie did something better than Cameron. And yes, give it credit, this movie also understands that the sinking was a tragedy that took the lives of many. ...Barely.
In conclusion, this movie is a fun little train-wreck that is impossible to take seriously. If you're curious as to how badly an animation can be made without it being outright horrible or insulting, I'd recommend it. Just don't use it as a history lesson...