“But unless you’ve been put in situations of incredible temptation, or you’ve been on the deck of a sinking ship, you want to believe you’ll do the right thing, but you can’t know. I guess I have this fear that I would be kicking and clawing my way to the lifeboat.”
– Bill Paxton
You know the story: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, ship hits a big iceberg and sinks.
It had truly been my intention to go my entire life without ever seeing this movie, until the Bill Obsession struck, and of course, since Bill was in it, I had to go rent it. And it’s a good movie, no doubt of that. I expect it was my reaction to the Big Titanic Hype Machine that turned me off. That, and the fact that romances aren’t generally my thing, even if they do have lots of things crashing and exploding and sinking in them.
Bill plays Brock Lovett, captain of the modern-day expedition to recover relics from the wreck of the Titanic, in the story that bookends the main story of the voyage itself. It’s a nice role, but not a very meaty one, mostly showcasing his pretty blue eyes this time around. (I don’t know if it was the lighting, or the reddish hair, or what, but those baby-blues really stand out.)
Bill’s cute in this one, with the bleached hair, suntan, and earring. The nautical look suits him. Other than that, well, there’s just not a whole lot to his role. Screen time is maybe ten minutes altogether—which isn’t bad, except for the fact that the whole movie is, like, a day and a half long.
I give this one two and a half stars. Nice Bill stuff, but you have to sit through an awful lot of Leonardo di Caprio to get to it.