Titanic is an overrated film with little to offer anyone not infatuated with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Rating: 5/10 (22 November 1998)

When I entered the theater to see the film Titanic, I expected to see a romantic epic reminiscent of Doctor Zhivago, or even The English Patient. Unfortunately, all I saw was a $200 million film about social inequality a la Romeo and Juliet. The plot was so thin and the characters so underdeveloped that one longs for the ship to hurry up and sink within the first hour and a half. The boat itself was not even that amazing. Although the sinking scene was semi-exciting, it got old seeing the two characters run through hallways, only to be met by a door. About half an hour could have been trimmed from the film by removing these ridiculous scenes alone. It still amazes me that this film received so much recognition, not to mention the amount of money it took in at the box office. The only explanation I can offer is that apparently twelve-year-old girls have nothing better to do with their time and money than ogle at the mediocre acting abilities of the girlish Leonardo DiCaprio. The true atrocity of this film is not merely how mediocre it is, but the fact that it won the Best Picture Oscar when such films as The Sweet Hereafter and L.A. Confidential truly deserved it. This is not to say that I hated this film, but that it was not by any means the best film of 1997.