"Titanic" redux.....

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2003)

Another wasted opportunity to present a story of epic proportions, dragged down by the "suits", who have finally managed to geld one of the true giants of Cinema.
At the turn of the Millennium, I feel sorry for Martin Scorcese. Given free rein, there is no way he would have cast the insipid Leonardo de Caprio as the protagonist, nor the similarly vapid Ms. Diaz as the "love interest". Even assuming he DID go for this, I suspect that the hour or so removed from his original cut must have contained far more of Horace Greely and Boss Jim, for example, than Leo and Cameron superfluously comparing scars before "making out".
Martin denies all this of course, but with $100 million or so having to be recouped before any profits, I smell a ruinous hatchet job on his orginal concept.
The young female audience must be accomodated nowadays, but Leo can't begin to compare with (for just one example) Brad Pitt in the brooding, menace-below-the-surface department. Leo is of course gorgeous, but is woefully inadequate when up against the likes of Bill the Butcher.
Daniel Day-Lewis is nothing short of phenomenal in this film...but he's forced to "carry" it almost single handed, and damn near pulls it off.

Tragically, however, GANGS OF NEW YORK is reduced to a Van Gogh in water paints.