Worst animated movie ever (Day 1)

Titanic: The Animated Movie (2000)

Starring: Lisa Russo, Mark Ashworth, Gisella Mathews, Silva Belton, Bianca Alessandra Ara, and Veronica Wells

Writer: Camillo Teti

Director: Camillo Teti

Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars

A young woman named Angelica (voice of Russo) boards the Titanic not knowing her - and everyone else's - lives will be changed.

Titanic: The Animated Movie (video title for Titanic: The Legend Goes On…), an Italian production, is possibly the worst movie ever made and certainly the worst animated movie ever made.  First of all, as Timmy Turner would say, the animation reeks.  It reminds me much of Belle's Magical World, the 1998 Disney video release that inspired me to forge a letter of resignation for my despotic instructional assistant.  It also reminds me of Disney's The Return of Jafar, the first sequel to Aladdin.  Strictly speaking, in those films the animation was too fruity, too colorful.  The animation in The Legend Goes On… is not ambitious almost at all.  When I watch an animated feature, I expect it to be sweeping and not like something you could see on any Saturday morning TV show.

And, yes, it's a musical.  The first number is "Party Time," sung by a rapping gray terrier, which is completely unnecessary to the story and horrendously edited.  There is also "Mucho Gusto," sung by "Mexican" mice (all characters have British or American accents) and lifeless, considering it was a "salsa" song (though male salsa singers have high voices).  That's right, according to this movie, the animals onboard Titanic were just as important as the humans.  Yet none of the personalities who were onboard made it into this movie.  No, they've been substituted by insipid ones.

There's a love story between Angelica and a gent named William (Ashworth).  By the time the credits roll, less than an hour had passed in my life, which is why the characters are undeveloped and the plot developments run off the rails.  It's a patient of Fuller syndrome*.  Also, the movie hasn't bothered to come up with an original plot, preferring to assemble one from carcasses of other children's movies.  Plagiarized are Disney's Cinderella (Angelica has an evil stepmother and step-sisters), An American Tail (Fievel and his family are ripped off), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (not just unoriginal, but pointless, since the Dalmatians don't talk and don't belong to anyone), and even James Cameron's Titanic.

William, too, is quite clichéd.  The step-sisters are deeply annoying, and the first low point of the movie (involving them) comes thirty-eight minutes into the affair.  It HAS to be one of the worst scenes ever filmed, almost up there with Torgo playing with women's hair in Manos.  In fact, not even the animals are as likeable as you should think - a shame, since this is aimed at five-year-olds.  The secondary characters are not supporting folks, they're props.  The dialogue between William and Angelica is tepid.

The second low point is the ending - or should I say, from the back of the video case:

"CHILD-FRIENDLY ENDING ASSURES EVERYONE IS RESCUED AND LIVES HAPPILY EVER AFTER!"

Aside from that, the animals are saved by dolphins; the men throw the water over the side with buckets; and although EVERYONE is saved, we only see an epilogue that is the most rushed part of all.  An already-crappy movie is now the textbook definition of pointless.

For the purpose of this film festival, this movie was my first purchase from eBay (which I will only use if I can't find something on Amazon).  Actor Edmund Purdom would, alas, end his career with this film.  By the way, this was the second of three retellings of the disaster by Camillo Teti.   Movies like this must be one reason traditional animation is folding.

*-Fuller syndrome is named after Simon Fuller, who wrote From Justin to Kelly, which also had rushed situations.