One of the Best Ever

Rating: 10/10 (11 April 2001)

**Standard covering spoiler warning, just in case.** Like many other films I have seen and then read the IMDb comments for, many seem to either love it or hate it, although in this film the extremes are not as vivid. I happen to, for this movie, fit in the former category. I saw it five times in theaters, most with excellent theater sound and picture quality, but if you want to really see it, you have to have seen it in all its glory on an IMAX screen with the surround sound (Branson, MO, Aug. 1998). THAT was a cinematic experience.
I have been interested in the Titanic story since 1994, and I never tire of learning or talking about it. I more or less fell over myself (and my parents) to get to it in its first ten days. On December 27, 1997, I was not disappointed.
The CG work with the ship is spectacular, especially the flyby with the water and the smoke. That takes a lot of work, and it was pulled off nicely. Not to be outdone by that, the CG work in the sinking phase of the movie was great too. Give the hand to Digital Domain. Especially that guy that hits the propeller. Another big hand goes to the art and set departments. Can other historical movies claim to order the same carpet and lifeboat davits as those of the original? Lots of little things add up, although there were as many equally little things that were missed. This movie certainly has the biggest goofs page I've seen, but more on that later.
As a male, I certainly am not one of those who went to see it for Leo and/or any part of a love story. However, it does provide an effective vehicle (however flawed you wish to claim it) for connecting the present to the past and showing all aspects of the ship. The love story is not the central issue. The story of the ship and the hope, glory, and tragedy in it is what you're looking for. The story serves to get you from first class to third, from the forepeak (although passengers didn't go there) to the stern, and the boiler rooms to the bridge. As far as DiCaprio and Winslet themselves, well, I don't have enough acting 'experience' to be declarative on that.
The interplay with the historical figures is done well, for the most part. Some of us more than others may know exactly who is being discussed or referred to with their historical context, e.g. Colonel Gracie with the women he was helping when Rose and Jack come out of the Second Class stairs. Getting to know Mr. Andrews was a good thing to put in. Of course, you have to realize that the cast of characters during the dinner scene, although all real people except for Rose, Ruth, Jack, and Cal, would most likely never have dined together. However, it does serve the purpose of putting the fictional characters in with history.
This film is not without its errors. I mean, check out the goofs page. Many are your run-of-the-mill continuity errors, but others are legitimate factual errors that, despite the best efforts of Cameron and crew, happen. A film based on a true story with photographic and witness records, not to mention a couple volumes of Senate testimony, will do that. Those who are not at least moderate scholars won't catch most of them.
Goofs particularly grating to this buff are Astor at the Grand Staircase at 2:15 (he was crushed by the funnel), Molly Brown being called Molly before the sinking, the inordinate amount of women on Collapsible A (there was one, Rosa Abbott), and the Brown/Hitchens standoff, which Brown actually won and did get the women to row. On a side note to that, though, you will notice in Boat 6 both Frederick Fleet and only one first-class man, who was ordered into it because he was a yachtsman and they only had one seaman on board. That's a historical detail not lost on me.
The soundtrack is worth every note played on it. I think the movie as a whole earned every Oscar it got, and/but was rightfully denied the ones it did not. The fifteen minutes that begin when the band finishes playing are, in my opinion, one of the (if not THE) best fifteen-minute sequences in movie history. (But some may not say that doesn't mean much because there are a lot better five-minute sequences out there. To each his or her own.) Anyone wondering why this movie didn't hit the AFI 100, by the way, it's because voting was cut off at movies made in 1996 and earlier. Obviously a December 1997 release doesn't make the cut.
If you want to see some of the more-known deleted scenes and some of the not-known deleted scenes, and would like to know more about the ship in general, I recommend James Cameron's Titanic Explorer CD. If you are interested in the ship's story as a whole, this is a valuable addition, and movie clips interspersed throughout make it that much more real.
Looking at the rankings, you can see that it's tops (10-35%), it's great or good (8/9-25%), or it's not worth the 3:10 of celluloid it's printed on (1-11%). AS I said earlier, to each his own. I loved it, and it earns its ten. For the naysayers, well, I also love The Matrix, and according to some of the reviews I read I'm a mindless hack for that too.