Special effects weren't enough

Rating: 5/10 (19 September 2000)

I think the reason I was so disappointed in this movie was because I didn't go to see a ship sink, or to awe at the "spectacular" special effects. I went to see it based on terrific earlier performances by Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Basketball Diaries", "This Boy's Life", and "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet", "Marvin's Room", etc...; as well as Kate Winslet's roles in "Hamlet", "Jude", and "Sense and Sensibility". She's also since done great work in "Hideous Kinky" and "Holy Smoke". In hindsight, though, that may have been a bit credulous.
I knew going in that the main pith of the movie was the state-of-the-art effects showing the preeminent Titanic sinking. I had hoped that that was going to be an added bonus, not the only thing worth mentioning. I found the whole storyline of Kate Winslet, the rich, upper class socialite, "Rose", falling in love with DiCaprio's rag-tag, wrong-side-of-the-tracks, "Jack", very cliched. As the formula goes, he repulses her at first, then they grow to love each other, then they realize they can't have each other because of their class differences, but love perseveres. And, naturally, there has to be the evil boyfriend, played here by Billy Zane as "Cal", who seems charming and elegant on the surface, but has a mean and jealous fervor in him. There are a lot of other ingredients to be interpolated into the formula, but this is the gist of it, and the material never strays too far off the beaten path.
Now, I have been to movies where all I expected to see is great action & special effects, and conceded that the acting and story weren't exactly on the front burner. "Mission: Impossible II" comes to mind. However, I was so disappointed that this movie, which I don't think you could classify as "action", and with all of its potential, turned out to be so mediocre. The story and plot were very hackneyed and trite, and the actors really had no room to move in such a formulaic offering. If you want some good titles to look at from 1997, try "Good Will Hunting", "L.A. Confidential", or "As Good As It Gets".
In the end, for me, the special effects weren't enough.