Boy meets Girl, Ship meets Iceberg

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2001)

The most expensive movie of all time and the most successful of all time is a marvel of spectacle yet minimal on substance. Cameron's magnum opus has every element you'd expect from a Hollywood epic  romance, tragedy, historical grandeur, lavish sets and costumes, eye popping set pieces, and of course sexy actors  but somehow manages to achieve great results with the smallest amount of subtlety.
The film begins in modern day Nova Scotia where a marine archaeologist (Paxton) stumbles across some tattered drawings whilst exploring the wreck of the famous ship for a priceless diamond. The drawing is that of a naked young woman who appears to be wearing the proverbial diamond of great price, and when Paxton's find is broadcast on TV it sparks off some memories in 101 year old Rose Calvert (Stewart). It transpires that Rose Calvert was in fact the socialite Rose DeWitt-Bukater who was supposed to have gone down with the ship some 84 years earlier. Of course that was not the case, and Cameron's film gives her the opportunity to set the record straight. In 1912 she was going to America to wed her thuggish fiancé Caloden Hockley (Zane), when in mid Atlantic she decides to throw off the shackles of her upper class oppressors and jump ship in a manner of speaking. Then she meets her knight in shining armour Jack Dawson (DiCaprio), a down on his luck travelling artist who saves her in every way a person can be saved (cue nauseating plot line). So they meet, he shows her the ways of the world by taking her to a party in steerage class, she leaves her fiancé, he teaches her to fly, paints her in the nude, they have sex, the ship sinks, he dies and her heart goes on  and on and on and on. So essentially it is just your classic tale of boy meets girl, ship meets iceberg.
Despite all the hype and hoopla, Titanic' is quite a mesmerising piece of work that delivers an endless series of thumps to the heart while provide little if any food for thought. Although the characters are essentially black and white morally unambiguous personages, and the actor's thespian talents are not really challenged by the roles, and the dialogue has patches is purely prosaic (note when DiCaprio overhears the that the ship will sink he comments `This is bad'  very observant), the film has a great deal to compliment it. The opening underwater sequences are as eye catching as anything ever committed to celluloid, the vast shots of the ship in motion are breathtaking, and the attention to detail of the ship's interiors are flawless. However hackneyed the script may be, DiCaprio and Winslet inject their limited characters with endless charm, and the romantic romp is a shamelessly enjoyable roller coaster of fun and frolics. Yet it is only when the ship collides with the berg that the film kicks into first gear. The panic, terror and heartbreak of the sinking is viscerally recreated in all its gory horror, proving once and for all that James Cameron is the world's foremost director of action sequences. The aftermath is equally appalling, having to be seen to be believed.
With a running time in excess of three hours this film could do with being a little shorter, and some of the sequences featuring the two leads trapped in the bowels of the sinking ship are excessive. Against its predecessor the highly commendable A Night To Remember', Titanic' can hold its own, primarily for its brutal depiction of the ship's final hours, however it has neither the historical accuracy nor the emotional depth of the former. Criticisms aside, Titanic' is the movie that will reinvent blockbusters for the 21st century, and while it is about a subtle as a hole in the head  or the hull if you must  you will not be likely to see a bigger film for many years to come.