pretty good, but too long and overstuffed

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 1998)

I only recently saw "Titanic" on video about a week ago, and I wanted to because it was so popular and I wanted to see for myself how good it is. Here's the bottom line: the love story and acting were pretty good, the special effects were stunning, but the film's main problem is that it was at least 30 minutes too long. The first part of the movie was straight-forward and the acting was decent, and yes, I'm not afraid to admit it, but Leonardo Dicaprio did a good job. However, I'm a big fan of action/thriller movies, and the second half of Titanic could have been much better. For one, there were too many scenes of unimportant people falling this way and that and dying. If they focused more on the main characters, that would cut off some extra running time. Also, I'm not too sure that a disaster thriller and a romance story can mix into an overall product. You know the boat is gonna sink, so why throw in a whole different second storyline? This at times makes a movie look overstuffed. Overall, this movie has its ups and downs. I don't highly reccomend it, but all I can say is that it'll amaze some people and stupify other people. Not bad for a movie with 3:15 running time. My rating: ** 1/2