Review of Titanic (1984) by Victor T — 26 Jan 2015

In the early 90´s, James Cameron was consider one of the best, if not the best, action directors around so when it was announce that his next film, after the colossal success that "Terminator 2" achieve, would be a romantic film set in the middle of 1912´s Titanic sinking, audiences where skeptic but "Titanic" shockingly became the highest grossing film of all time and a pop culture milestone.

In 1912, Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth aboard Titanic, Rose is forced to marry Cal tin order to resolve her family´s financial issues. Depressed by the engagement, Rose considers suicide but is saved by a penniless artist named Jack Dawson, and this act is the beginning of a love relationship.

Having achieve the title of "highest grossing film of all time" (not adjusting to inflation) and tying "Ben-Hur" for the most Academy Awards won, I had extremely high expatiations and, as expected, "Titanic" didn't even come close to those expatiations. Cameron´s version of the 1912 tragedy is one of the most unbalanced films I ever seen. On one hand it counts with extremely innovating and revolutionary special effects, incredibly detailed sets, spot on costume design, gorgeous cinematography, solid acting by most of the cast with the best being Kate Winslet in her breakthrough role, splendid editing, a somewhat relatable love story, Cameron´s solid direction that managed to make a corny concept work remarkably well, and a perfect mixture of romance with Cameron´s trademark action. But on the other hand "Titanic" counts with arguably the laziest and worst screenplay that Cameron has ever written, a simplistic and predictable story, laughable lines, cliché characters that lack deep, Leonardo DiCarpio gives, arguably, the worst performance of his entire career as the annoying "perfect" poor man, the classic social class stereotypes, most characters are useless because Cameron is completely focus in the fictional love of Jack and Rose, a very slow pacing, a completely unnecessary modern day subplot, and it of course uses cheap trick to touch your heartstrings. But even with all those unbalanced elements, "Titanic" manages to be entertaining if you just turn off your brain.

"Titanic" is a technological masterpiece and an entertaining film with a romance that will appeal most people but because of its simplistic screenplay it will be criticized by moviegoers who expect something revolutionary.