Titus (1999)

...

This movie... It is nigh-impossible to describe...
Have you ever had a moment where you saw something that had absolutely no explanation, and you had no other response other than a flat "What."?
That is this movie. This movie is pure "What."

It has good cinematography, set and costume design... I say this because I don't normally notice these things. With good reason, as those things are supposed to help make the world presented seem more real, and suspend our disbelief, therefore making us not notice them. In this case however, they serve to remind us that it is completely fake.

Allow me to explain... When you imagine a motorcycle, what period do you imagine? What about Nazi's, guns, or the pope-mobile? Compare that to the time period you imagine with Grand stone architecture, armored soldiers, and of swords and spears. They seem completely different from each other, do they not? Well, they are mixed together here, in an extremely jarring way. This is supposed to be medieval Rome, yet it mixes in future technology. Now, this can possibly work; there is an entire genre based on it called Steampunk. But here... It just doesn't make sense, and breaks our suspension of disbelief.

It doesn't really help that we are left wondering if this is a dream or not from the very beginning of the movie; since we begin in modern day with a boy playing very messily with his toys and food, and are then suddenly transported to Rome, where soldiers covered in blue mud come walking in like the Cybermen in such a fashion and rhythm that makes one expect them to start singing straight out of Les Mis. Then, there is absolutely no transition into the story proper.

Do you know the story of Total Recall? It's basically that a guy goes into a dream machine/matrix that is supposed to give him an adventure. There is a lot of fan speculation on whether or not it was real or simply a dream, as the movie doesn't really say, and there are clues that give credence to both sides.
Titus is like that, except we are wondering where the dream starts and the story begins, or if the dream ends at all. If it is all a dream, then the person who is dreaming the thing up must be having a serious fever or ate a couple mushrooms before going to bed, because this movie is seriously screwy...

The story itself is good; it's Shakespeare, of course it's good. If this was a radio-play it probably would work very well. But, because this is a movie, the visuals must aid in telling the story. And it isn't a good sign when sequences look like they came from another movie entirely. some sequences look like normal shakespeare, some of them look like some weird 80's sci-fi, and some of them look like Las Vegas. It... it doesn't work.

And then there is the soundtrack... it is Jazz. In a movie about Rome.
Look, I know the christian gospel music in Hercules was a little odd, but it makes sense as a sort of pun. (plus the music in Hercules is still awesome.) But, Jazz, in ancient Rome.
To illustrate, listen to this:

Imagine that in True Grit. Completely out of place and wrong right? Same thing with Jazz in Rome.
In addition, there is a problem with our disc of the movie (or possibly with the movie in general, we didn't see this in theatres so it is possible this was intentional) the music is incredibly loud, while the dialogue is rather quiet. Oh, and did I mention the dialogue is word-for-word Shakespeare? Which means it is incredibly hard to understand, in addition to being hard to hear (at least on our end).


So, Jazz Music in Rome, the Pope-mobile and spears, Shakespearean dialogue, and utter confusion as to whether or not everything is a dream. Yeah, the 63% on rotten tomatoes makes sense, though I'd go lower.

This movie is almost impossible to suspend disbelief for... Every time I try to relax and just let the movie happen, it brings forward yet another problem!
Suspension of disbelief is not something to be tampered with! If the audience doesn't believe you, they aren't going to keep paying attention!


This movie would be infinitely better if they just tried to make Titus Andronicus. Without the "SHYMBOLIZM!!!!!111!!111!!" or the anachronistic stew. A recording of a stage production would have been better.


If you just want to see an anachronistic art movie, this is fine... But if you want to see Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, I recommend finding a stage production, or see if they have a master piece theatre production of it. Just, don't watch this one.