Titanic (1997)

Directed by James Cameron. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, David Warner, Victor Garber, Bernard Hill, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci, Suzy Amis, Jason Barry, Eric Braeden, Bernard Fox. [PG-13]

Soggy romance set against the backdrop of the maiden voyage of the unsinkable British ocean liner, the RMS Titanic, and the tragedy of its sinking after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. DiCaprio shot to superstardom playing poor orphan lad Jack, who wins a third-class passenger ticket in a card game; onboard, he meets upper-class girl, Rose (Winslet), unhappily engaged to pompous jerk, Cal (Zane), and they fall in love. The stars do solid work, and there’s no faulting the epic scope and first-rate production values and special effects, but writer/director Cameron’s script is astonishingly stupid—riddled with clichés, cornball flourishes, and tin-ear dialogue—and the supporting characters are mostly embarrassing stereotypes (it’s a wonder that Zane didn’t grow a moustache for the role that he could twirl). Sunk even further by an utterly worthless modern-day framing device with elder Rose (Stuart) telling her story to treasure hunter Paxton, which pads out the already excessive runtime and caps the whole thing off with a “romantic” act of arcane idiocy. A major gamble in the making, going way over budget and becoming the most expensive film in history, but it all paid off when it turned into a box office juggernaut and pulled off a major sweep on Oscar night (picking up statuettes for Best Picture, Director, and just about every technical award in sight). Cameron also received producer and editor credits.

49/100