Titanically overrated

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2002)

Teenage girls spent an entire summer watching this movie; people flocked to it in unprecedented numbers; the Academy of Motion Pictures completely lost its head and awarded it Best Picture. All for a film that was little more than a poorly-written Harlequin Romance set on the greatest ship to never finish one voyage.
This film could have been improved in so many ways:
1) Punt the insipid fictional love story and focus on the real-life characters. The supporting cast playing the actual people on board the Titanic was, on the whole, a much better group of actors than the ones in the fictional love story.
2) Have somebody (anybody!) else play the role of Jack. Matt Damon would have been good, Joaquin Phoenix would have been better, but DiCaprio was a huge mistake.
3) If DiCaprio is really a must, have him and Billy Zane switch roles. Zane is much better suited to the romantic lead role, and DiCaprio would have been perfect as an unlikeable, self-absorbed fop.
4) The Captain should have been portrayed more as he was in real life, not as the confused, incompetent geezer the movie makes him out to be. Witness reports say that Captain Smith acted heroically and with honor; it is a disservice to his memory to portray him as this film does.
After all this, I must admit that I did kind of like this movie. I just don't understand all the fuss over it, and I REALLY don't understand why it won the Best Picture Oscar. This is a good film, but it is far from being a great film.