Still an epic

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2012)

14 years ago I took my then 12 year-old daughter to see a three hour plus film, expecting her to get fidgety: she did not. Neither did I. And now, having seen the movie a number of additional times on a smaller screen, I revisit it on a big screen after a 3D revamp.
My first viewing of this movie carried preconceptions with it: I was expecting it to retell the disaster, and I was expecting spectacular eye candy. I got both, and I appreciated that Cameron had chosen a fictitious love story as a vehicle for audience identification to bring home the tragedy on a personal level.
On re-watching it 14 years later, I realise that what I'm watching is a romance, played out against the background of the Titanic disaster. I also realise a number of other things: for instance, the groundbreaking computerised extras are no longer as convincing as they were, James Horner's music is great, Cameron's direction is excellent and his writing, despite the occasional clunky bit of dialogue, is very skillful. Oh, and while the performances of the principals are very good, there is some very dodgy work from some of the bit part players.
Overall, the verdict is that this film deserved its Oscars. And the 3D conversion has been very successfully carried out, and confirms that Cameron is one of a very small number of directors who truly understands 3D.