There are much, much better epics out there...

Rating: 1/10 (12 August 2003)

Despite Cameron's showboating at the Academy Awards, this is simply a bombastic mess. His first mistake was to take on too many roles, and crucially, that of screenwriter. What flimsy story he concocted to precede the disaster is rife with bad dialog and the most tired stereotypes imaginable. Take a look at the "Goofs" page here, too. You would think they could have done much better; sloppy work for one of the most expensive films ever made.
I felt like shouting at the screen at times: are you kidding? They spend how many minutes of the film in bone-chilling water and aren't even shivering just a little bit after getting out? (The water temperature would have to be about, what, 30 degrees? After all, there's icebergs floating in it! They would have been hypothermic within minutes, and dead after a few more.) And he gets the Best Director Award for such atrocious work? (The Man Who Would Be King of the World, indeed!)
Billy Wilder tersely summed it up in one of his interviews with Cameron Crowe: "Have you ever seen such horse**** in your life?"