Come on, admit it. This is a great film!

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2003)

When you have a film this big and successful, it just stands to reason that a number of people are going to try to bash it. Especially when it happens to be a romance. And sure enough, I am the only male I know who has anything positive at all to say about it. Is all of the criticism warranted? Let's see...
Jim Cameron didn't need to create this huge-scale, heavily detailed historical drama to prove to me he was a great director. This film did pretty much convince the rest of the movie-going world, though. We all know the story of this great luxury liner sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on that chilly April evening in 1912. The substantial loss of life still ranks among the great human tragedies of recent history (9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc). Cameron spared no cost of either time or money to make the ship and its furnishings look exactly as they would have on that maiden voyage. In terms of technical detail, this film is without peer.

The cast is generally appealing. Leo DiCaprio is far from a world-class actor, but his enthusiastic and earnest portrayal of Jack Dawson couldn't have been done better. Kate Winslet looks right in her element as a pampered young debutant trying to brake away from her boring life consisting of endless dinners and tea parties. Kathy Bates as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" is always likeable and the rest of the cast (mostly Brits) does a good job of filling out their respective roles of cast and crew. Billy Zane gives the film's best performance as Winslet's greedy, snobbish fiancee. He is one of our most underrated actors. And you have to love David Warner as his bodyguard/enforcer. As far as the special effects go, it's hard to imagine the sinking of the ship could have been filmed any better. Each time you view it, you seem to get a different perspective of just how lucky any of those passengers were to survive not only the actual sinking, but waiting around in life boats for help to arrive. As of this writing, only three known survivors are still alive. One can only imagine how many countless hours it took to conceive of, shoot, and edit the last hour of the film. The results are terrific.
There are flaws in the overall mix, however. Some of the dialogue (Mostly Leo's) is down right corny. "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose!" or "You seem like kind of an indoor girl" are two examples. Also, the notion that a guy from steerage class could go up and mingle with the first class passengers under any circumstances is not plausable. Keep in mind that a first class ticket on Titanic in today's economy would go for $80,000! These were some RICH people, and they wouldn't have let a guy like Dawson near them.
Anyone who watches this film will have to endure numerous scenes of sappy romance. This film is a romance above all else. Just tough it out if it bothers you. It's not that bad.
This film is tragic, exciting, sensual, pretentious, corny, extravagant, and even a little cheesy. And I love EVERY DAMN MINUTE OF IT!!!!!!!!
5 of 5 stars.
So sayeth the Hound.