Technically brilliant, otherwise merely OK

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2002)

My best comment for this was that offered by my then 13 year old granddaughter. When one of her friends gushed over it, her only reply was, "Let me guess... There's either a rich boy and poor girl, or a rich girl and poor boy. The ship sinks. One of them dies. Right?" There are so many great real stories to be told of the Titanic, why do almost all film makers feel compelled to invent a contrived, maudlin story line?
Of course, unlike her friend, my granddaughter already knew the stories of the Strausses, Wallace Hartley, John Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Molly Brown, and so many others.
If James Cameron had simply chosen to use all his skill and special effects budget to tell the sort of honest story told in "A Night To Remember", it would've been an all-time great. As it was, it alternated between brilliant and annoying.