Looks great, horribly clichéd plot

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2009)

It's interesting to see the extreme opinions (pro or con) expressed here about Titanic, ranging from those who feel it's the greatest story ever told to those who feel it's the worst travesty ever produced in Hollywood. I don't agree with either – I feel that Titanic is a somewhat run-of-the-mill movie that wasn't worthy of the vast amount of hype it generated, but can still provide an evenings entertainment (albeit with some employment of the fast forward button). I can supplement my review with contemporary impressions from first seeing the movie in 1998, taken from an email cum movie review written to a friend of mine in a distant corner of the world who hadn't seen the movie yet. (Extracts from this email are in quotes).
First, the good stuff. I loved the efforts that Cameron made (either through sets, or through CGI) to reproduce the look of the RMS Titanic, as well as re-enacting the sinking:
"Verdict on Titanic: The staging of the ships interiors and exteriors are stunningly realistic -- damn near perfect is more like it. Obviously, a great deal of effort was made to get things down pat."
It was also very interesting to see the underwater film that Cameron really shot on the wreck of the Titanic – much better than the film shot for the Imax documentary Titanica. This underwater film, the interiors, and the digital depictions of the Titanic underway are enough to make the film worth watching all by itself.
Regrettably, with the good comes the bad. I've always felt that the biggest strike against the movie is the cliché love story between the two star-crossed lovers:
"Unfortunately, a good chunk of the film is the so-called 'love story'. This portion of the story, starring this year's pretty boy, is Hollywood cliché from start to finish. 'Poor little rich girl' meets poor but honest travelers/artist aboard the Titanic. She's travelling in 1st class with her beastly fiancée and assorted evil, stuck up, snobbish, rich capitalist/oligarch pigs. He's travelling 3rd class with the salt of the earth immigrants. Think for a few minutes and write up a list of 10 Hollywood clichés that come to mind. I guarantee that 75% of them are in the film.
The real story of the Titanic and its passengers is story enough, in my opinion -- the love story wasn't needed. I assume that it was added to add some uncertainty to the story. Hollywood should have learned from Apollo 13 that just because the audience knows the end of the story doesn't mean you can't make a good movie of it. In any case, the 'love story' adheres so much to cliché that it can be mapped out with uncanny accuracy after ~ five minutes anyway."
The only thing I would retract from my 1998 email is the comment about DiCaprio being "this year's pretty boy" – I've subsequently seen some of his other work, and I think that he can be a decent actor. I actually own Titanic on DVD (purchased cheap), and I watch it occasionally. But I do so with ample use of the fast forward button.
I've sometimes wondered what someone could do with a "Phantom Edit" of Titanic – could they edit Jack and Rose out of the film almost entirely, and just leave a decent semi-documentary account of the sinking?