RAISE THE TITANIC (1980)

"It's just laying there! Move, you bastard, move!"

With the popularity of the 1970's disaster phase waning and audiences demanding more fantastic blockbusters (like SUPERMAN, STAR WARS and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) what better time was it to sink $40 million into a slow-moving film about the wreckage of the Titanic?!  Keep in mind, the same year's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK only had a budget of $18 million!  Another thing that puzzled me was 1977's all-star AIRPORT '77 (which not only featured a commercial airplane being raised from the ocean floor, but was also directed by Jerry Jameson!) only brought in $30 million...so why would the filmmakers of this film think that retooling basically the same story with even less star power would make more money?!

The entire story behind the making of this movie would be fascinating to hear.  Like...what was the logic behind financing this film?  Looking back on it now, it sounds like a completely insane idea...and it was.  RAISE THE TITANIC cost a reported $40 million to make and only brought in $7 million at the box office.

So, we established that RAISE THE TITANIC was a financial disaster, but is it a good film?

Ehh, not really.  I enjoyed the beginning, but once the story got going, it quickly became too silly and slow-moving for it's own good.  Long story short: the American government needs a rare mineral (the fictional "byzanium") for a full-proof nationwide missile defense program.  Unfortunately, the only known location of the amount of byzanium needed for the project is in the cargo hold of the Titanic.  Don't ask.  The whole story is ridiculous and only gets more ridiculous when the government decides the best way to retrieve the cases of byzanium is to first locate the Titanic and then raise that big bitch out of Poseidon's underwater sex dungeon and drive it back to New York City.

And if all that wasn't enough: On top of wildly convoluted story (how about instead of a bunch seahorse shit about a government defense program, you just have rich guy who simply wants to raise the Titanic?), there's the exceedingly pointless love triangle between the two men in charge of the program and a female newspaper reporter!  And don't forget about the Russians!  Or Alec Guinness who's listed in the opening credits, but is only on the screen for less than 6 minutes.  The script for this movie is a mind-blowingly wonderful train wreck.  I can't quit thinking about how dumb the whole thing is.

Overall, being a box office bomb doesn't make RAISE THE TITANIC into a bad movie, it's the dumb story, slow pace and poorly written script that make RAISE THE TITANIC a lame movie.  But then again, I pre-ordered the blu-ray, so what the fuck do I know?

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994)

The President gets all pissed off when a friend of his, who just happened to skim $650 million off of some dealings he had with a South American drug cartel, is murdered by that same drug cartel.  The President gives his henchmen permission to take out the drug cartel.  Secretly, of course.  At the same time, Jack Ryan (Ford) is appointed Deputy Director of the CIA.  He has no idea about the black-ops stuff happening in South America.  When he discovers what's going on, he heads down to SA himself to rescue the men that were left behind.  Of course there's tons of other shit is going on, but you'll just have to see for yourself.  It's all very exciting.

Much more violence than the first two Jack Ryan films, grander scale and story, 141 minute runtime that flies by, explosions, helicopters, small appearance by Hope Lange, jets, Hollywood-style computer hacking, James Earl Jones, snipers, solid acting, a gigantic computer monitor, enjoyable bad guys.  I really enjoyed CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, but I was disappointed in the lack of screen time for Archer, Birch and the complete absence of J. E. Freeman.  Good 90's thriller.

Part 1 -The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Part 2 - Patriot Games (1992)
Reboot 1 - The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Reboot 2 - Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)