Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

It was with some anticipation, not a lot mind you, but some that I looked forward to our friends over at the Asylum and their epic film ‘Titanic II’. I mean c’mon, it’s ‘Titanic II’ from the Asylum, the people who brought us ‘Mega Piranha’ and ‘The Day the Earth Stopped’. It’s going to be a boat disaster movie with ninja and terrorist and space aliens and all kinds of crazy stuff that doesn’t belong in a boat disaster movie. I was even halfway hoping that one of those crazed giant piranha from ‘Mega Piranha’ might’ve made a guest appearance. I didn’t get any of that. What I got was a straight forward, completely linear, totally lucid boat disaster movie. It wasn’t a good boat disaster movie, but it wasn’t terrible either. What I’m saying is I was expecting less, which for me would’ve been more, but instead I got something more competent which ultimately was less. If that makes any kind of sense.

Our film opens with some cat hanging out somewhere in the Arctic, I think, engaging in the sport of Glacier Surfing which we have to admit we have never heard of. You sit in freezing water floating on your board, wait for a glacier to collapse and then ride the wave this glacier has created. Apparently this is something that people really do. So this guy rides this glacier and his really happy until a monster glacier unexpectedly collapses and now this guy is all scared because he is about to die. If he was a real surfer that monster glacier should’ve filled him with some unbridled hang ten joy and he would’ve rode that monster wave to surfing nirvana heaven. This cat panicked like a bitch. I saw ‘Point Break’, I know how this is supposed to happen.

What does any of this have to do with big sinking ships? Say hello to pompous rich guy Hayden Walsh, as played by writer / director Shane Van Dyke. Hayden has created the monster of all luxury ocean liners and thought it would be cool to name it Titanic II. Tagging along on the maiden voyage of this ship is Hayden’s old squeeze Amy (Marie Westbrook) as the ships nurse who misses the old, sensitive Hayden that we in the viewing audience never got to meet. Raise the anchor and let’s set sail across the Atlantic. Or Pacific. I can’t remember.

The problem is Marie’s old man James (Bruce Davidson), a veteran Coast Guard captain working in conjunction with the worlds hottest iceberg scientist Dr. Kim (Brooke Burns) have discovered that the icebergs are breaking off at an alarming, global warming rate and the biggest berg of them all, about the size of Rhode Island, has just collapsed causing tsunamis and giant tidal waves while carting huge chunks of ice along with it.

History has informed us that ice chunks and ships calling themselves the ‘Titanic’ don’t really go together all that well, and thus all hell has broken loose on the ship that has yet to be fully tested and now it is flooding, capsizing, exploding, sinking and people are dying at an alarming rate. An alarming rate. At a rate where it looks like the only people left are Hayden and Marie and its not looking good for them either. Old man James has just one request of Hayden and that would be ‘save my baby girl’. Save yourself Hayden, save yourself.

I guess the number one problem with this movie was probably the decision to call it ‘Titanic II’. If you watch Asylum movies, like I do, and ‘Titanic II’ slides across your desk then you expect some total nonsense. A guy would walk across the deck and I’d mutter ‘I bet he’s a ninja / terrorist. I betcha’. But there was none of that glorious nonsense as we have already established. If you don’t watch Asylum movies and you see a movie calling itself ‘Titanic II’ then you’re going to have nothing but vitriol and derision for this film and you will read off blanket statement like ‘Worst Movie Ever’ when it isn’t really close to that. It’s not a good movie mind you but it is a completely run of the mill big ass boat disaster movie. That’s all it is. In fact if they had titled it ‘Big Ass Boat Disaster’ it probably would be much better received.

Even though this movie is saddled with a few dodgy green screen effects and some suspect CGI ‘Titanic II’ wasn’t all THAT bad really. Bruce Davidson is a professional in the truest sense of the word putting forth the same effort in this movie that he puts forth in one of those mega X-Men movies, Brooke Burke did a fine job talking fancy science talk and Marie Westbrook made for one fine looking damsel in constant distress.

Taking into account what he had to work with here, Shane Van Dyke keeps his little disaster moving at a decent pace, the action was plentiful, the suspect CGI effects kept coming and all in all this was a perfunctory disaster movie. It’s just it was all so… standard.

Because of the questionable special effects and the like this movie really can’t compete with other main line disaster movies, unless its competing with its own lineup, say like ‘Airline Disaster’ which this movie was better than but at least ‘Airline Disaster’ had the good sense to sign up some Nazi Terrorists. This movie really needed to do something else to set itself apart to make it more memorable and it just didn’t do this. It’s probably wrong to wish for a Nazi / ninja / terrorist, but that’s I want. I can get what I got with ‘Titanic II’ just about anywhere and much better. I expect more from those guys.