My humble opinion

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 1998)

Most all of the critiques on this (far-too-easy-to-register-to) page have been eloquent and precise. Some of them haven't, but that's not the point.
James Cameron is a helluva writer/director/producer when it comes to action sequences. That's why the "sinking scenes" were so incredible, sfx-wise; but the audience was not allowed to care all that much about any characters but Jack and Rose.
The dialogue was cheesy, but I expected that. That's how people talked back then. I didn't expect it to remain that way for the entire three hours, though, and I certainly didn't expect Cameron to "modernize" Jack and Rose 's speech, while leaving everyone else's alone. But perhaps that was just from the cardboard-cutout way DiCaprio and Winslet spoke their lines.
James, shame on you. There were at least a half-dozen REAL tearjerking romances you could have used as your main story, but no. You HAD to go and insult all those people that died for nothing on Titanic and invent a romance of your own that was so totally FAKE, a five-year-old could have seen through it.
Then you added a few goofs of your own that will go down in history as the truth (see the Disney version of Pocahontas to know what I mean). You insulted heroes; men and women that gave their lives so that others might survive to tell the story, just to get a few onscreen laughs. Example: "We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. Tell my wife in New York I did my best doing my duty" is one of the sweetest lines ever uttered (by Ben Guggenheim, for all you non-historical-buffs), yet you cut out the last line and then dared to put stupid words in a dead man's mouth: "But we will take a brandy, chap!"
Which I should have done before walking into the theatre.
I know Cameron is laughing all the way to the bank, but still: for the ridiculous budget this film received, he could have looked over his script JUST ONCE to remove all the obvious errors and blunders.
At the Oscars, Cameron made such a fuss about how much he cared for the deaths on the Titanic. What a crock. If he'd really cared (about anything but the stinking Oscar), he would have: 1. gotten decent actors for the parts of the two lovebirds instead of a couple of kids designed to draw preteen girls to the theatres in droves; and 2. removed the sex scenes from the film, as they had absolutely nothing to do with the Titanic tragedy and were put there for the sole purpose of making the people who fell asleep during the first hour-and-a-half wake up.
Oh, and someone get DiCaprio a dialogue coach.