Snooze

Rating: 2/10 (29 January 2003)

I give James Cameron credit for being an accomplished producer, but he and George Lucas have one unfortunate thing in common: they both can write a good story and are capable of overseeing a project, but James and George are both sub-par at dialogue and are terrible directors from an actor standpoint. That is what kills Titanic. The movie is visually stunning and the story moves along fairly well, but the acting is just not up to snuff. This surprised me a bit because DiCaprio and Winslet have been good individually in other movies, but here they seem wooden and constrained by sappy dialogue.
My other major problem with this movie is the predictability inherent in the story. I will say that I am prejudiced against movies that don't contain some element of surprise. Because this is a movie about the Titanic you know the boat sinks (unless you slept through elementary school). It makes the end rather anti-climactic.
So why is this the highest grossing movie of all time? Because apparently 14 year old girls will pay again and again to watch a tragic love story on the big screen. It only took me one viewing to realize I don't ever need to watch this movie again. 2/10.