Bloated *Epic* With Fictionalized Love Story

Rating: 3/10 (19 December 2010)

I detested this movie so much when I first saw it that I really wanted to give it one star, but as bad as I still think it is, it is fairly well-made and at least the technical department earned their salaries here (though quite frankly I thought that some of the CGI effects screamed "FAKE!" louder than the scale models used by Roy Ward Baker in 1958's A NIGHT TO REMEMBER). What sinks this movie for me (pun very much intended) is the fictional love story forcibly inserted by Cameron, doubtless with the cynical intention of attracting teenage girls. Which it did. By the millions.
When Oscar time rolled around, Hollywood apparently decided that 1997 was the year to call the movie that made the most money *Best Picture,* to say nothing of the other ten Oscars it won, plus three nominations. Now I have not seen every movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar, but of all the ones I have seen, this one has to be the least deserving of the honor.
For starters, aside from the fictional romance, there is nothing new here. I made mention above of Roy Ward Baker's 1958 film A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, which is THE definitive dramatic film about the Titanic disaster: there are no fictional characters, no romantic heroes or heroines; Baker chose to tell the story plainly, in an almost documentary fashion that still carries a huge wallop fifty-two years later.
Cameron's film, by comparison, though it is wonderful to look at (obviously no expense was spared, from costumes to special effects), is a curiously cold and uninvolving piece of work except for when Leo and Kate are on the screen. Cameron's fatal mistake was that he forgot that the Titanic disaster was a real-life human drama; Roy Ward Baker knew this, and his film, fully an hour-and-a-half SHORTER than this one, yet manages to show the terrible loss of humanity of all classes that terrible night. Cameron's film has little feeling for any of the subsidiary characters, with a couple of exceptions, such as a lusty Kathy Bates, delightful as the unsinkable Molly Brown, and Gloria Stuart, who at eighty-eight came out of retirement to play Rose at age one hundred-one.
Unfortunately these bright spots are too far and few between in a much- too-long movie that cannot escape the fact that the central romance is uninteresting at best, and irritating at worst. Cameron shows a shameless disregard for his actors in this film. Leonardo DiCaprio is not the least bit convincing as a young man from 1912; he comes across as a typical California brat who grew up eating Sugar Pops. Kate Winslet, a terrific actress, is horribly misused here; left to her own devices, she often fails to find the right notes, most noticeably towards the end, when she and Leo climb the ship to the near-vertical stern, and she turns to him and squeals, "This is where we first met!" The line is awful in and of itself, especially in the context of that moment, but had she delivered it with tears streaming down her cheeks and a great deal of pathos, it might have been palatable. Instead she sounds like a teenage girl going to a high-school dance.
There are a few other good performances in the supporting cast in addition to the two I have mentioned, but unfortunately they and the rest of what was a true-life story of hubris, heroics, class divisions, and self-sacrifice, are buried under the cheap date-movie romance that Cameron inserted. I'll give him credit for one thing: he knew that the love story was what would keep the viewers coming back; had he chosen to simply tell the true story, I don't know if the film would have sunk faster than the ship did, but it most certainly would not have gotten all the undeserved acclaim that it did.
If you haven't seen A NIGHT TO REMEMBER yet, get it. Compare the two and see the difference honest storytelling can make to a movie.