In defense of the bloody boat....

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 1998)

I have read a great many of the comments posted regarding "Titanic". Needless to say, I've come face to face with platitudes of spiteful criticism. The film's detractors seem to be beating the same arguments into the ground: length, DiCaprio, special fx, Cameron's ego, cliche'd dialogue. Not to say that these are all valid points (to a degree), but arguing the film's cliche'd machinations is essentially becoming a cliche within itself. Moreover, I notice a steadily- increasing lack of originality in the complaints; words like "awful" and "stupid" and all sorts of loaded language season every dissenting word. I have yet to see a concise, beautifully-articulated dissent, one that can explain contempt towards the film in a meaningful, intelligent manner. Allow me to conclude with three final points: (1) to dismiss the film as an overblown love story would be a pompous, arrogant thing to do; a disservice to the tragedy that the fictional tale is centered around; (2) James Cameron may be a lot of things, but he is not, by any shape or form, a bad director -- he's a competent technocratic director, not yet in the same league as Spielberg and Lucas, but he weaves tales that emphasize human emotion above human ingenuity, and he does it in a way that puts the likes of Bay, Bruckheimer, Emmerich and Devlin to shame, and; (3) Titanic is not "the most overblown, over-rated film of all time" - that title goes to Larry Clark's "Kids".
Of course, we're all entitled to our own opinion, the same way the Academy is entitled to theirs. But I'd hate to think that all the negativity heaped upon the film is built upon a foundation of spite and personal distaste rather than judgment based on its artistic merits.