Titanic
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton, Gloria Stuart, Ioan Gruffudd
Directed by: James Cameron
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Historical, Drama, Romance
1997
Times Seen:
Tim: 2
Summary: Aboard the Titanic, artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) falls in love with Rose (Kate Winslet), a woman already set to marry another man (Billy Zane). The Titanic hits an iceberg, and the two lovers must fight for survival.
Review:
Tim: In many ways, Titanic is one of (if not the) biggest movies of all time. After grossing over $600 million in the U.S. alone, it became the highest grossing movie in the history of motion pictures. James Cameron put together a masterpiece of a film here.
A love story set on the Titanic is a gutsy move by itself, but also making it into a true tragedy was a stroke of genius by Cameron. I respect him for going forward with his dream even though many around him doubted the success of the film. He stuck by his guns and it paid off in the end.
Cameron succeeds by making the first half of the movie a searing romance, and then just when the romance reaches its apex, Cameron switches gears and goes from romantic to a full-out disaster movie. By this point in the film, you are so caught up in the two main characters that you almost forget that the ship will sink. Suddenly, it all comes crashing back into reality. After he plows through the disaster aspects of the film, Cameron brings his movie full circle back to romance, and sprinkles it with the tragic element. The film is genius.
Titanic is a master work by an excellent director. He even had the intelligence and luck to throw in a huge hit song by Celion Dion ("My Heart Will Go On") and you have the formula for success. The film did unbelievably well at the Academy Awards, picking up 11 trophies, cementing the fact that Titanic is one of the most successful films of all time.
Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 9
If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Gone With the Wind, Dante's Peak, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator