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In January 2000, a made-for-TV movie called Britannic aired. Starring Amanda Ryan, Michael Atterton, John Rhys-Davies, and Jacqueline Bisset, the film tells a highly fictionalized account of HMHS Britannic and her last days in November 1916.
I remember renting this movie from Blockbuster back in the day and being really excited to watch a film about Titanic’s lost sister. Firmly an ocean liner nerd at this point in my life, I prided myself on how much I knew about the Olympic-class ships. I vividly remember not being impressed with Britannic and thinking it was downright terrible.
Twenty-plus years later, I decided to watch this film again for Movie Monday. Armed with a glass of Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof rum, my wife and I put it on. Was it really as bad as I remembered? Read on to find out!
Please note: this review contains spoilers. It also includes lots of snark too. You’ve been warned.
Plot Summary
A Career Interrupted
The movie opens to a rather dramatic shot of the Union Jack transposed against the riveted hull of a ship. The music is rather suggestive of the score from James Cameron’s Titanic. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. “Based on true events” flashes up on the screen, followed by a rather cool montage featuring footage of the Britannic’s launch and fitting out at Harland & Wolff. There are also scenes of soldiers fighting in the trenches of World War I.
In Southampton, England on November 12, 1912, a tender sails out to an anchored ship. Aboard are Lady Lewis I(Jacqueline Bisset) and her children, Sarah and William. They’re on their way to Greece where Lord Lewis has become British ambassador. With them is Vera Campbell (Amanda Ryan), the children’s governess. Once their grand ship is sighted, the tender’s skipper points out, “There she is ladies, the Britannic. Sister ship to the late Titanic.” Some exposition follows about how much safer this ship is due to raised bulkheads and a double hull. “Unsinkable is what she is,” the skipper adds haughtily. I seriously doubt that anyone was calling any ship — especially Titanic’s little sister — unsinkable.
Meanwhile, a Royal Navy chaplain bound for Britannic is murdered by German spies in a dark alley. One of them (Michael Atterton) puts on the dead man’s uniform and assumes his identity. Ooh, this is a spy thriller!
Once aboard Britannic, Vera grows anxious and faints unexpectedly, causing Captain Barrett (John Rhys-Davies) to scoff. After she recovers, she sees the captain on the bridge and reveals secret orders from British Military Intelligence. Ooh, she’s a secret agent! It turns out that the government fears there’s a German spy aboard. Why? The Germans suspect that Britannic is secretly carrying munitions. Captain Barrett scoffs again and proclaims that this is a hospital ship carrying medical supplies.
The Lewis children run into the German spy, going by the name Chaplain Reynolds. He and Vera meet, and there are instant sparks of attraction between them. Ooh, it’s a spy romance movie!
Brewing Trouble
While touring Britannic’s engine room, Chaplain Reynolds encounters an Irish crewman who offers to give him a tour. It’s revealed that the ship is actually carrying munitions bound for Cairo, Egypt. Gasp! The crewman also tells Reynolds that he’s a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Double gasp! He explains a plot to mutiny and take over the ship using John Bull’s own weapons in retaliation for what the Black and Tans are doing in Ireland. Never mind that this is 1916 and that the Black and Tans won’t form until 1920. The German spy throws in his lot with the Irish mutineers. Later that night, using a portable wireless set, Chaplain Reynolds communicates this information to a U-boat tailing Britannic.
In her cabin, Vera Campbell has a nightmare in which water pours in through her porthole. She swims to safety and emerges next to a lifeboat from RMS Titanic. Pulled aboard by a helping hand, Vera watches somberly as the grand ship slips beneath the waves.
The scene cuts to the War Office in London, where two officers discuss Vera Campbell’s placement aboard Britannic. It seems that she’s just recently finished training and there are some concerns. But the agent they’d intended to put aboard the ship is dead, and there was seemingly no one else available for the job. Besides, there was little chance that there was a German spy aboard Britannic anyway.
Later during a lifeboat drill, Vera reveals to Chaplain Reynolds that she survived the Titanic disaster and that her husband was killed. They share a tender moment before the Lewis children go play hide and seek in the ship’s cargo hold. Vera and Chaplain Reynolds split up to look for them.
Vera uncovers some of the Irish mutineers plotting, and Reynolds uncovers the hidden munitions. He’s discovered by a stoker named Evans, however, who’s neck is promptly broken. It also needs to be said that Britannic’s boiler rooms are incredibly clean! The stokers have little to no coal grime on them whatsoever. Captain Barrett must run a clean ship.
Mutiny!
The mutineers decide to strike. All seven of them (not including Herr Reynolds). They take a Lewis gun and successfully take control of the bridge, but Vera sees them and produces her own pistol to stop them. Machine gun fire erupts as the bridge’s windows are blown apart. Britannic’s officers and crew strike back, and Vera kills one of the mutineers.
Captain Barrett is taken hostage, but Chaplain Reynolds shoots the mutineer to keep his cover. As the armed sailors aboard Britannic regain control of the ship, a running gun battle erupts in the Engine Room. But the mutineers are eventually stopped, and Vera and Chaplain Reynolds are both hailed as heroes.
I was at this point in the movie that my wife turned to me and said, “I feel like it’d be in the historical record if anything like this had happened.”
One of the mutineers survives and is locked up, but released by the German spy. before being killed. Reynolds makes contact with the U-boat again, whose skipper informs him that he’ll attack in the morning at 8:10 am.
On November 16, the warship HMS Victoria rendezvous with Britannic. Below decks, at about 8 am, the engine and boiler room watches change. Britannic’s watertight doors are all opened to facilitate this. The warship reports a periscope off the liner’s starboard side, and Vera realizes that an attack is about to commence. The U-boat fires two torpedoes at Britannic before HMS Victoria sinks it with depth charges.
As the torpedoes near the ship, a crewman cries out, “Remain calm! This is the biggest ship in the world. It is unsinkable!” You know…instead of that other ship that was the biggest in the world and called unsinkable.
One torpedo misses, and Chief Officer Townsend blows up the other one with a Lewis gun. Yes…really. Chaplain Reynolds looks on with chagrin as everyone else celebrates on deck. His mission for the Fatherland has failed.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Britannic docks in Naples, and Chaplain Reynolds meets with another German agent. He gives the spy contact detonators and tells him to sink the ship. Vera sees the exchange and is immediately suspicious. Reynolds maintains his cover coolly, however, and the two walk off arm in arm. He jokes about how she thought he was a German spy.
Back aboard Britannic, the body of Evans — the stoker that Reynolds killed earlier — is discovered underneath a coal heap. Near the body is a gold officer’s button, which gives a big clue as to the spy’s identity. Vera and the ship’s doctor decide to keep this to themselves for the time being. All of the Britannic’s officers, including Captain Barrett, are suspects.
Chaplain Reynolds and Vera eventually give in to their smoldering passions. Later, she discovers that one of his tunic buttons is missing — and she knows he’s the spy. She leaves hurriedly to tell the doctor, who’s shot by Reynolds after refusing to give him ether for his contact detonators. Vera’s knocked unconscious. Chaplain Reynolds grabs the ether and runs down to the engine room.
Vera regains her senses remarkably quickly and follows after Reynolds. She catches up with him and demands to know who he really is. Reynolds reveals himself to be Major Ernst Tilbach of German Military Intelligence. He drops his makeshift bomb into a coal bunker, but not before Vera shoots him in the arm. An explosion rocks the ship and breeches the hull. Reynolds/Tilbach had previously disabled the watertight doors, so Britannic is helpless against the onset of rushing water.
On the bridge, Captain Barrett tries to save the Britannic by beaching it on the nearby island of Kea. This only serves to expedite the sinking. The evacuation begins, but William Lewis has gone missing. Vera and Reynolds/Tilbach go to look for him and find him knocked out from the blast. Another explosion rocks the ship, which knocks the German spy down and traps him under some metal beams. He tells Vera to leave with William, and she does so.
On deck, Lady Lewis is helped into a lifeboat and sourly quips to Chief Officer Townsend, “So much for your unsinkable ship!” Vera reunites young William with his mother and sister. Despite everyone’s pleas, she then goes back to save Reynolds/Tilbach from drowning. You know…the guy who blew a hole in the ship.
“Gag me with a spoon,” my wife shouted at this point. “Stop being a dumb, emotional woman!”
The Death of Britannic
Having miraculously recovered from her unresolved trauma from the Titanic, Vera fearlessly braves the flooding ship. She frees Reynolds/Tilbach, but the compartment they’re in is filling rapidly and there’s little time to escape. They swim down and find an unusually large porthole and escape that way. They surface at a conveniently placed, empty lifeboat.
Horror unfolds nearby as another lifeboat is drawn into Britannic’s still-turning starboard propeller. It’s quickly (and bloodlessly) chopped up. Chief Officer Townsend sees Vera and Reynolds/Tilbach and throws them a line. He intends to pull them both to safety. The German gives the line to her instead, thereby ensuring her survival. Releasing the lifeboat, Reynolds/Tilbach dies as the propeller chops it up.
“That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a man do,” says Chief Officer Townsend admiringly. Yeah…absolutely the bravest thing that anyone has ever done. Especially in the middle of World War I.
Britannic, her propellers now miraculously stopped, finally keels over and sinks in about 30 seconds. The ship begins a long, interminable plunge to the bottom of the Aegean Sea (you know…totally the 400 feet she actually sank in).
Over footage of the real-life Britannic’s wreck, viewers learn that the ship “sank in 57 minutes, half the time of the Titanic.” Thirty people total died in the sinking. French undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau discovered the ship’s final resting place 60 years later, and the credits tell us that an underwater museum is being planned for the wreck.
My Review
Oh my…where to start?
Britannic is a hot mess. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. It’s clearly trying to capitalize on the success of James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic, and falls short. It’s actually way, way worse than I remembered.
The film claims to be based on true events. If you mean that there was an Olympic-class liner called Britannic that sank off the coast of Kea in World War I, then yes…this film is based on true events. But that’s it. Vera Campbell is based on Violet Jessop, the “unsinkable stewardess” who famously survived both the Titanic and Britannic disasters (she was also aboard Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911).
The plot is overwrought, melodramatic, and just plain bad. Firstly, if you want to make it a spy thriller…don’t reveal who the spy is in the first 10 minutes. The Columbo format doesn’t work here. It would’ve been way more interesting to keep the audience guessing until the very end. The subplot with the IRA is also ridiculous, as is the idea of a U-boat being able to keep up with the Britannic and tail her for four days.
Then there’s the CGI. It’s terrible. You’ve seen the pictures all throughout this post…you know what I’m talking about.
The acting, however, is actually quite good. John Rhys-Davies commands every scene he’s in (I mean…it’s John Rhys-Davies) and he’s really convincing as a gruff ship captain. Amanda Ryan and Michael Atterton have really good chemistry together, and I found their performances to be nuanced and believable. Sadly, though, it wasn’t enough to save this mess of a movie.
Britannic was pretty terrible overall. But hey, if you like watching bad movies (I know some people do), then give it a watch. It’s only 93 minutes long and should be mostly painless to get through. Mostly.
Have you seen the movie? What did you think? Please let me know in the comments below!
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