3-D washes out 'Titanic' palette

If

Titanic

was James Cameron's meditation on the limits of technology, his new 3-D conversion underscores the point, to a fault.

The conversion was expensive - at $18 million, it cost more to make than this year's Oscar winner (The Artist, $15 million). And it was ambitious and exacting in the Cameron tradition - he sent bids out all over the world for the best technology, and asked companies to "audition" for the job by converting the same piece of footage. The winning firm spent a reported 60 weeks working round the clock to bring the new 3-D Titanic to theaters ahead of the 100th anniversary of its sinking, April 15.

The result? A disappointment. The new version offers no new moviegoing thrills, and, to my eyes, it's actually a less enjoyable visual experience.

The converted Titanic has the same bugaboo that handicaps so many new 3-D productions/conversions - when you don those glasses, the lenses invariably dull the colors you see on screen. And Titanic is a very soft-palette movie - a lot of muted grays and blues, with (in some early scenes) a mellow sepia haze often used to suggest a time long ago.

When he made his 3-D extravaganza Avatar, Cameron was shrewd to design the movie in brilliant, saturated colors that could fight through the dampening filter of the 3-D glasses.

The hues of Titanic, by comparison, do not lend themselves to 3-D. I spent an hour flipping the glasses up and down, comparing the images, and with the glasses on, what you see on-screen is murkier. Everything loses a little definition, a little life.

I've talked to several directors who have made movies in 3-D, and there is a consensus among them - to do it right, you have to conceive the entire project in 3-D, soup to nuts. The shots, the angles, the colors. Conversions like Titanic are usually at a distinct disadvantage.

On the other hand, the new 3-D Titanic does remind us that Cameron knows how to fill a screen. The movie (like Avatar) loses a great deal on television, even on home theater systems. Cameron likes working on an epic scale that can best be appreciated in theaters, where his grand themes and "top of the world" gestures play better. The central love story involving steerage passenger Leonardo DiCaprio and rich girl Kate Winslet has lost none of its luster - metaphorically speaking.

Directed by: James Cameron. With Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Distributed by Paramount.

Running time: 3 hours, 14 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (adult themes, nudity)

Playing at: area theaters in 2-D, 3-D, and ImaxEndText