A sinking feeling...

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2002)

Take any cheesy love story worthy of Mills and Boon. Set it against one of the worst shipping disasters of modern times, being sure to pad the story out so the film overruns by at least two hours. Add in some "ground breaking" special effects, and you have yourself an Oscar-winning epic, 1997-style.
Anachronisms abound. (Rose giving the "finger" - I half expected her to say "kiss my ass!") The "class warfare" angle is ridiculously overplayed, and just in case we *really* don't get it, no mention is made of the fact that the Titanic had classes of accommodation other than "first" and "steerage". Presumably the second class passengers spent the entire time below decks.
When the truth doesn't fit the class agenda, Cameron simply makes it up - witness the steerage class passengers locked below decks while the toffs boarded the lifeboats, and the officer who murders several passengers before turning a gun on himself (a shameful fiction which did not please the real fellow's living relatives; Cameron was forced to apologise).
"Titanic" was condemned in some sections of the English press as an "anti-English" film. In truth, it's simply a lazy movie which exploits Hollywood clichés (hence the English-accented villains) and twists the truth to suit its own prejudices.
In summary, "Titanic" is a dull, uninspired film which does the Titanic story a disservice. If this is the template that Cameron is using, I sincerely hope he doesn't have a "9/11" movie in the pipeline. "Titanic" could scarcely have been less credible if Cameron had filmed an all-out action adventure, with Arnie in the title role, and it would surely have been more entertaining!