Contrived, and in many ways, offensive

Rating: 2/10 (15 January 2003)

Truth is stranger (and more interesting) than fiction, and this movie proves it. Aspiring comedians that take courses on perfecting their art are always told that their real life is a much more interesting place to start than the imagination when writing material. Why? Truth is often more interesting than anything that you can come up with on your own. I think this is the reason why this movie is so contrived and phony. Rich girl, poor boy, snobby/evil/shallow rich people, noble/happy poor people...can you get any less original? The stereotypes are offensive as well. All the Irish people are drinking, partying, poor people, and the rich are all cold-hearted wasps. Then there is the dialog. I was cringing at every line and actually felt bad for the actors because they had such awful lines to work with. When I first saw this movie, I thought the lines sounded so bad, in part, because of some poor acting. Since then, I have seen other movies with Leo in them and can see that he is a good actor, but just had some awful material to work with in Titanic.
I wish that the creators of this film used the real story of the titanic as a source of their inspiration. Instead, the main focus of the movie isn't the titanic or all the real people that lost their lives in this tragedy. The movie is really mostly about a fake love story that reaches new heights of cheesyness. I think making a movie about two fake people (two fake annoying people) named Jack and Rose makes light of a very real event where many real people died. I bet every single one of those real people had a more interesting life than Jack and Rose.
The movie does, however, have one good thing going for it. It does have good special effects. This saves it from getting the lowest possible score. I gave it 2/10