In Search of the Titanic (Tentacolino)

In Search of the Titanic (Tentacolino)

Don't search for the Titanic.

Genre:	Animation Adventure Musical Romance Thriller
Directed by:	Kim Jun-ok
Produced by:	Orlando Corradi
Written by:	Clelia Castaldo Orlando Corradi Loris Peota
Starring:	Jane Alexander Anna Mazzotti Francis Pardeilhan Gregory Snegoff
Photography:	Color
Distributed by:	Mondo Cinema
Release date:	June 17, 2004
Runtime:	88 Minutes
Country:	North Korea Italy
Prequel:	The Legend of the Titanic

In Search of the Titanic (also known as Tentacolino) is a 2004 North Korean-Italian animated film directed by North Korean filmmaker Kim Jun Ok and is a sequel to 1999's The Legend of the Titanic.

Plot

Three years after the first film, Don Juan and Elizabeth, as well as their dog Smiley and the mice Top Connors and Ronnie, have begun exploring the ocean depths in search of the sunken wreck of the Titanic in a bathysphere. However, a shark named Ice Teeth cuts the cable of the bathysphere and sinks it. When they are sunk, it seems to look like they are dead. Tentacles is the first to see this and tries to lift up the bathysphere back up to the surface so they can return home. When he tries to lift it up, he can't grab it with his tentacles and gives up all hope. However, the people of Atlantis manage to rescue them and bring them to their kingdom. The occupants awake and find themselves in the lost city of Atlantis.

The expedition members undergo a special treatment (a glass of elixir, which looks like wine except it's green) enabling them to breathe underwater. The elixir also makes Don Juan, Elizabeth, Smiley, Connors and Ronnie immortal and unable to return to human life. The king of Atlantis appoints Pingo, a fish with a spring under him who loves partying, to be the group's counsel to inform them of their situation at a hall full of toys that they also rescued. Afterwards, Don Juan and Elizabeth go back to the king as he apologizes if Pingo's words of never returning to the surface bothered them, which Don Juan assures the king that they are not bothered about it. Meanwhile, Smiley finds himself in love with a white dog (her name is never stated in the film) and seems to quickly return his affections, while Connors and Ronnie are approached by other mice and attend a secret meeting where they learn about a plot to steal the elixir of life. Connors and Ronnie alert Don Juan and Smiley to the plot. The king of Atlantis decides to substitute the elixir with ordinary water. Smiley then decides to help both Connors and Ronnie in their plot to fool the mice into thinking they actually stole the elixir of life from the king of Atlantis.

The mice steal the elixir and present it to their leader. This, however, almost kills him by drowning, as it convinces him to jump head-first into the sewers tied to heavy stones. When the other mice see this, the mice's leader and his followers are arrested and are confined to a mental institution for the rest of their life.

As a reward, the king of Atlantis assists in the recovery of the Titanic, enlisting the help of Tentacles, the giant friendly octopus who, in the previous film, accidentally threw the iceberg into the Titanic and managed to save everybody on board despite not being able to save the ship itself. The king then transports the Titanic to the bay of a secret island and also makes it Don Juan, Elizabeth, Smiley, the unnamed white dog, Connors and Ronnie's permanent home. The film ends with Don Juan and Elizabeth, as well as Smiley and the unnamed white dog, kissing each other, seemingly happy with their new home.

Why It Shouldn't Be Searched For

Both titles of the film (In Search of the Titanic and Tentacolino) make no sense because the film is mostly about Atlantis (while the Titanic is found at the end of the film, it still doesn't make sense) and Tentacles (which even the alternative title couldn't get the name of the character right as his real name is Odie) isn't even the main character of the film and only appears in the first part of the film, the climax, and the ending.
Almost every single character has been renamed for no apparent reason. Smiley became Smile, Tentacles became Odie, despite the movie being called Tentacolino, and Mr. Ice became Razor Teeth. It is possible Everard Maltravers became Baron Vandertilt and his assistant Geoffries becoming Geoffrey, due to extremely similar character designs. This could possibly be a result of a bad translation since the movie was originally in the Italian language.
Speaking of Everard Maltravers, if he is Baron Vandertilt (the only change being the hair color), it is never explained how he and his henchman, Jeffery, were saved from the Atlantic and what became of Elizabeth's stepmother.
Countless errors. Ice Teeth sank a bathysphere because he hates the color yellow, despite the fact that he has yellow on his suit, which makes him a hypocrite.
There are pointless scenes with Smiley and a nameless female dog, these scenes don't really add anything to the plot other than being filler and to rehash the same romance between Don Juan and Elizabeth in the first film with the only difference being that they're dogs. These scenes also tend to be a little creepy with how sexual they feel, and at one point, Smiley looks like he's in pain while the female dog makes out with him.
Not to mention in the first film, Top Connors was older and living in a city with his wife Stella and had two kids (and then grandkids), but in this film, he lives in an island with Ronnie, Don Juan, Smiley and Elizabeth as a young adult forever, which makes this whole film a complete plot hole and a mess of confusion.
The only time when the film's plot actually goes outside of Atlantis and the conflict between the mice, sharks, and people of Atlantis is after the scene where Pingo (the fish with a spring under him) does a musical number for the protagonists, is when a radio announces that our protagonists are lost somewhere in the sea looking for the Titanic. You would think that this scene would actually have a point where the protagonists' friends and family are concerned about it and try to look for them. Well, you're wrong because this scene is never even brought up again and we don't get to see their friends and family in action, making the whole scene pointless.
Awful musical numbers, Ice Teeth, and his backup clams sing a rap, and a weird toy fish named Pingo with a spring under him singing from a regular song to a techno song with the toys dancing.
- While we are talking about the toys' atrocious song, if you listen closely in the background, there's the eerie, disembodied voice of a woman saying: "this is scary".
- Speaking of which, wasn’t there another Titanic film that also had a rapping animal of some kind?
Poor animation with some of the mouth movements not matching what the characters are saying.
Terrible English dubbing. For example, when Elizabeth holds Top Connors and Ronnie to comfort them she laughs, despite the fact that she does not look happy.
When Odie opened the bathysphere to let the mermaids in to rescue Don Juan and Elizabeth and co., he risked many gallons of water filling up the bathysphere in short time and drowning everybody inside it (except for the mermaids who can obviously breathe underwater).
Plot holes:
- Smiley the dog claims he is scared of water and that he cannot go into the ocean, yet he was fine on the Titanic in the first movie, and also seemed fine going into the bathysphere underwater and also seemed fine swimming underwater with a white female dog with a wig, so the line makes no sense.
- Smiley dances and sings with the said female dog, and when they go underwater the wig stays perfectly on her head and doesn't come off, thus ripping apart the laws of underwater physics.
- A Scottish man in a kilt has a wig on his head that makes him look like a little girl which the man calls a “curse” and must fight in the war to end his curse, the Scottish man later gets promoted to general and never shows up again in the film, which Nostalgia Critic said was “100% pointless”.
- The movie also reveals that Odie is 7 years old. This creates a plot hole because since he’s a child, why is he out in the middle of the ocean without his parents? Wouldn’t his parents be worried and wondering where their son is? Especially since in the previous movie he got fooled by the sharks?
- In the movie, the Atlantian government apparently banned screwdrivers, which is symbolism for racism, seeing that later in the movie, a character is seen with a screwdriver, which can talk, move, and even feel.
- In the first film, Top Connors was married to Stella at the end of the film. However, in this film, she is never even mentioned.
Inappropriate Line: “Have you been drinking?”
Most of the characters portray no more than just being filler.

Redeeming Qualities

The movie can be considered a "so bad its good" movie for how bizarre and stupid it is.
Despite being awful, the songs are pleasing to listen to on their own.

Videos

External Links

Tentacolino at the Internet Movie Database

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