Alicia I love this movie so much

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Enoch Sneed One of the greatest human tragedies/dramas of the 20th Century is wasted in this clichéd, poorly acted mini-series. Why do writers (and directors, mentioning no names, but with the initials James Cameron) think they can do better than re-enacting the truth? Presumably Julian Fellowes was considered a suitable writer on the back of the success of 'Downton Abbey' set in the same era (of which I have seen not one second). If he had any interest or knowledge at all about Titanic it can only have been very basic (big ship, people on it, it sinks, people die). At least Cameron had genuine passion for his subject, Fellowes just gives us a by-the-numbers approach: snooty aristo's? check; plucky steerage passengers? check; immigrants, so we have an ethnic angle? check; doomed lovers... you get the idea.Even worse are the fictitious elements. Italian waiters locked in a cupboard? There were people who couldn't reach the boats, and the first boat was not launched until an hour after the collision, because the ship was badly organised and managed - that is the *real* tragedy of Titanic.The sinking itself is completely mishandled, a confusing mish-mash of scenes with no sense of increasing danger, just a desperate effort to tie-up all the plots which started in the first three episodes. The final scenes in the lifeboats are simply anti-climactic and fill out the running time.Watch this once if you're determined to be a Titanic completist, but otherwise forget it.

deanosuburbia When I first watched this when it was broadcast in 2012 I was left wanting. I found the way the episodes concentrated on different characters perspectives made me not care about them. The sinking scenes were rushed and I couldn't help but want to watch James Cameron's version and A Night To Remember or even the Catherine Zeta- Jones version. I decided last night to watch the whole series again and I enjoyed it so much more. The episode format grew on me although I was sad that some of the characters played little or no part in the middle episodes. I found the production values to be quite good considering the budget constraints they had. The lighting was too dark in places which made it difficult to see what was going on at times. This might have been to make the viewer feel like they were in the action but for me this didn't work. I found the survival of some of the characters hard to believe especially the Earl of Manton. Overall though this was a watchable account of the sinking of the Titanic, I would imagine that if they had a bigger budget they could have done that much more with the sinking scenes. My favourite Titanic adaptations are as follows, 1st - James Cameron's 1997 epic, 2nd - 1958 British effort A Night To Remember, 3rd - 1996 Catherine Zeta-Jones mini-series, 4th - This ITV version, 5th - S.O.S. Titanic, 6th - 1953 version.

TheLittleSongbird I wanted to like this mini-series, really I did. I love Downton Abbey and Gosford Park is great fun, so it isn't as if I am not a fan of Julian Fellowes. And this had a great cast on paper. Unfortunately, apart from some beautiful photography, gorgeous costumes and a wonderfully-rendered ship as well as some decent turns from Glen Blackhall and Geraldine Somerville, this soggy ITV drama sadly never seems to leave the deck. A main problem of mine was the pace. Most of the drama had a very rushed feel to it, consequently characters came and went, story lines(and rather derivative ones at that) were introduced but never satisfactorily elaborated upon or resolved(especially Mary Maloney's) and the main characters lack depth or even any sort of genuine personality and it doesn't help that here they are all underdeveloped stereotypes.Some scenes particularly at the start take a while to get going, maybe in an attempt to give the characters depth but seeing as they failed with that aspect the first episode was dull, and the sinking scenes which had potential to be riveting lacked any true tension. The dialogue lacks the control and wit also of Downton Abbey and Gosford Park, it is all very stilted and soap-opera-ish with some parts like with the younger actors cringe-worthy and there are a couple of heavy accents too making some of the dialogue muddled. The rest of the acting considering the cast pedigree was disappointing, and the fact that a lot don't have much to do has a lot to do with it.Toby Jones for example is a good actor, but is one of these, and for me he also had a character that was all too derivative of some of his other roles(such as a less-evil version of Quilp from The Old Curiosity Shop). The rest of the cast that aren't the main focus of the drama are so little used and so scatter-shot in their appearances that their acting is downright forgettable. All in all, a big soggy and largely unmoving disappointment, better than the animated versions, which are the "what-the-devil-did-I-just-watch?" sort of quality, but for a better version try the sumptuous James Cameron version which had an absolutely riveting last hour and especially the brilliant A Night to Remember. 4/10 Bethany Cox

gradyharp The DVD hasn't been released here yet but the 'mini-series' is now over. It is difficult to call this amalgamation of snippets about an historic tragedy a miniseries because it was spread out so unevenly (3 hours on first night, one hour on second night) and we are now informed that the film is a total of 184 minutes which means that the fourth hour was completely filled with the most distracting and disrupting of commercials. Why this new version of TITANIC wasn't place on cable television where it could have been enjoyed on one uninterrupted three hour showing is beyond understanding. Perhaps when the DVD is released and there are no loud and ugly commercials every 5 minutes the story will hold together.Julian Fellowes, so respected for his writing of such series as Downton Abbey, etc. seems to have the urge to tell the story of the event through quick snippets of personal stories among the passengers - a commendable idea, but when the tiny tales are buried in the almost immediate collision with the iceberg and the attempt to flesh out the story by making it about how tragedy affects people's relationships come as little disconnected pop-ups, it is difficult to care about anybody, much less get to know them well enough to remember them at picture's end. Granted there are some moments before the ship is finished that emphasize the fact that the unsinkable Titanic was rushed to completion before it was safely ready, and those flashbacks to offer some interesting moments.But basically the story is the same as all the other TITANIC movies - a study about class distinction not only among the peerage of Brits but also the differentiation among first, second and third (steerage) classes - with a hefty dollop of snubbing the crass American passengers. Jon Jones directs this amalgamation of ideas. There are some brief but tasty moments for actors such as Glen Blackhall (a memorable Paolo) and Antonio Magro (Paolo's brother Mario), Peter McDonald, Steven Waddington, Ruth Bradley Linus Roache and Geraldine Somerville as the Mantons, Toby Jones and Maria Doyle Kennedy, Celia Emrie, James Wilby and Dragos Bucur (the stowaway Russian). The rest of the cast is so little used that they all but disappear.The film was apparently shot on digital video. Some of the effects are fine, but the whole film lacks cohesion - at least on the American release on commercial television!