Titanic (1997)

Starring - Leonardo DiCaprio; Kate Winslet; Billy Zane; Kathy Bates & Bill Paxton Director - James Cameron MPAA - Rated PG-13 for disaster related peril and violence, nudity, sensuality and brief language. So the question is -- is this the greatest movie of all time? Well, it's certainly the most successful. Maybe not the best movie of all time in my books, although I would have to say it comes pretty darn close. That's quite an admission coming from me, since I've never seen a love story that I didn't hate or fall asleep before the 1 hour mark. Titanic is just that a love story, even with the multimillion dollar sets and special effects, it is just a movie about the love two young passengers have for one another. I will have to admit, as love stories go; this was a very compelling one. Certainly, the best one I've ever seen. Although I still can't figure out what all the excitement is about regarding Leonardo DiCaprio. I guess I would have to be a teenage girl to figure out that one, but I digress. I went to see titanic not for the love story (I planned on tolerating it) but for the special effects. Believe it or not I actually found my cold-hearted self actually enjoying the romance between Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). While, as I've already said, I don't see what the fuss is over Leo, after seeing this film I couldn't imagine it being made with actors other than DiCaprio and Winslet in the lead roles. A fact that I think speaks volumes about their performances. There was truly no doubt, in my little mind at least, that by the end of the movie the characters of Jack and Rose were deeply in love. Heck, I actually even started to care about their romance. (I think I'm getting too soft.) But I didn't go to see this movie for the romance, I went for the special effects - I wanted to watch the damn ship sink. Now to get off topic for just a second, I was one of those who asked the burning questions before the movie came out. Who in their right mind spends 200 million dollars to make a film? Better yet on a film that everybody knows the ending to? If you are crazy enough to spend such huge amounts of cash, why wouldn't you cast some big name actors in the lead roles, so we the audience would have some reason to go? A whole lot of people asked those same questions. If they are anything like me, after seeing Titanic they had to ask themselves -- Why would I have ever asked such stupid questions? Why? Well, because critics are not filmmakers, and while we like to comment on films, and are relatively knowledgeable on the subject, for the most part we don't know as much as the people who make them. This is abundantly true with regard to Titanic's director James Cameron. The same man who many considered would be run out of Hollywood just a few short months before the film opened, is now being recognized as being among the greatest directors of all time. I really don't think that anyone can say enough about the job that this guy did. This brings me back around to the reason I went to see this film -- the special effects. The movie opens with breathtaking shots of the real Titanic on the bottom of the Atlantic, shot specifically for this film by director James Cameron. Although that almost pales by comparison to the special effects used during the last half of the movie as the ship is sinking. The 200 million dollar price tag is certainly evident on the screen. Both in the long shots where we get to see the great ship break up, and in the interior shots that were done in giant flooded tanks. If, like me, you go to Titanic for the special effects, I promise you will not be disappointed by anything that appears on the screen. A funny thing happened as I was watching the Titanic in its final minutes above the water. As much as I was in awe of the effects, and the complexity of the production, something else happened. An eerie feeling came over me. Unlike other disaster movies, this one really happened. All too often, when we think of the real Titanic sitting there on the bottom of the ocean, we forget something. Oh, we remember the tragedy of the situation and that hundreds of lives were lost, but most of us never stop to think what it must have like to be there on that ship as it was going down. James Cameron has captured those last moments, in a way that will make you think wonder why you never thought about it like that before. As spectacular as the special effects were, they could not overshadow a simple love story and the tragedy associated with one of the worst disasters of all time. A truly remarkable film, it is no wonder that so many people have gone back to this masterpiece several times. 10/10 - One of the greatest films ever made -- I would give it a higher rating if I had one. Reviewed March 4, 1998 by Joe Chamberlain