Commercially, a titanic success, great direction, but...

Rating: 5/10 (31 August 2006)

Before this film, the director, James Cameron was best known for action thrillers such as Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss and True Lies  all of which delivered the goods for action fans. After sitting through Titanic, however, I think he should have stayed with the true action-thriller genre, because when you mix genres, you can get mixed results. And, in this case, it shows...
The story of the Titanic is well known: an 'unsinkable' ship sinks on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912 with most of the male passengers dying. Cameron, using the technical wizardry he'd perfected in his earlier works, made you feel as though you were actually there, instead of being a mere spectator; the special effects are truly stunning. For action fans, that aspect of the film is relatively brief, however, because the bulk of the film and the very contrived plot are more concerned with the recovery of a fabulous jewel  a symbol of love -- from the existing wreck, left there by the heroine, Rose (Kate Winslet) with her all too brief lover, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) who perishes as the ship sinks. How the two lovers come together in the film and how the jewel comes to have so much significance forms the basis of the plot; the details of the sub-plot  the actual events leading to and including the sinking -- are mere props to the overall story of first love. The metaphor is thus complete  as the ship sinks on its first voyage, so also first love sinks.
All of that is explored in flashback, as a burgeoning love between two people who would not otherwise have met, anytime, anywhere else. So the actual loss of the Titanic is, in that sense, incidental to the greater loss suffered by each and every person who lost a loved one in that tragedy. To that extent, the film succeeds in its presentation but only because of the calibre of the acting. As an account of the tragedy of the Titanic, however, it's a misnomer and a failure; while, as entertaining escapism  well, as the saying goes -- nothing succeeds like excess.
To find out how the tragic event actually happened, you'd be better off getting a copy of A Night To Remember (1958) from your video store instead.