Titanic

ReelViews James Berardinelli

You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

With the ship, with its totality of people, Cameron is wizardly, creating an entire society threading through the various strata of a world that has been set afloat from the rest of the world. [Jan. 5, 1998]

TNT RoughCut Andy Jones

A heart-tugging potboiler that is at once poetic, tragic and cold as steel.

New York Daily News Dave Kehr

It leaves the port of enterprise and arrives on the far shore of art.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Titanic floods you with elemental passion in a way that invites comparison with the original movie spectacles of D.W. Griffith.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience that unerringly lures viewers into the beauty and heartbreak of its lost world.

USA Today Mike Clark

His (Cameron) movie may not be perfect, but visually and viscerally, it pretty well is.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A film that sweeps us away into a world of spectacle, beauty and excitement, a realm of fantasy unimaginable without the movies.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

The title represents size and power, speed and hubris -- the very things the ship has come to stand for and the things that Cameron has restored to the cinema with grand, generous style.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Maria Schneider

That the familiar story of the Titanic disaster is told with suspense is not as surprising as Cameron's clear-headed balance of truth and fiction, spectacle and tragedy.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

One hell of a movie.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A spectacular demonstration of what modern technology can contribute to dramatic storytelling.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Will take you by surprise as a romantic, fast-paced, entertaining spectacle that deserves to earn back every penny spent to produce it.

Newsweek David Ansen

The true allure of Titanic is its invitation to swoon at a scale of epic moviemaking that is all but obsolete.

Dallas Observer Peter Rainer

It's a powerfully ersatz experience, but at least it's powerful. There's a lot to like here: At three hours and 14 minutes, the film takes longer to watch than the Titanic took to sink.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Like the doomed vessel from which it takes its tale, Cameron's film is a behemoth, svelte, streamlined, and not the least bit ponderous.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The first half drags a bit, but the adventure scenes are exciting and the visual effects are as dazzling as Hollywood's most advanced technology can make them. Focusing as much on time and memory as on danger and disaster, it's an epic with a heart.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Titanic is a big-budget spectacle and director Cameron brings it off with high-tech bravura, placing us aboard the ship in real time.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Titanic is awesome even when it's awful -- you can't take your eyes off the extraordinary thing.

Film.com John Hartl

Technically, Titanic is a marvel.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Cameron captures the majesty, the tragedy, the fury and the futility of the event in a way that supersedes his trivial attempts to melodramatize it.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's both the shortest 3 1/2 hours you'll ever spend at the movies and spectacle of such magnitude that it's hard to imagine feeling you didn't get your time and money's worth.

Film.com Robert Horton

Like it or hate it, Titanic lives and breathes as a piece of pure cinema.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This movie should have blown us out of the water. Instead we catch ourselves occasionally thinking the unpardonable thought: "OK, sink already."

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The last hour of Titanic is huge and staggering, but there's no horror in it. No gravity, either. Entrusted with one of the century's monumental stories, Cameron can present it only as a crying shame. And that's a crying shame.

Film.com Tom Keogh

The would-be emotional centerpiece of his three-hours-plus adventure flick is the most juvenile romantic tale of 1997.

Film.com Peter Brunette

The human interest story that occupies fully two-thirds of this three hour plus epic is so flat and unconvincing that, for once, you find yourself longing for the disaster footage to start.

Slate David Edelstein

Cameron has never been known for his dialogue, but Titanic carries some stinkers that wouldn't make the final draft of a "Days of Our Lives" script.

Time Richard Corliss

Ultimately, Titanic will sail or sink not on its budget but on its merits as drama and spectacle. The regretful verdict here: Dead in the water.

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

No amount of excellent period costuming and brilliant set decoration can substitute for a good story and decent acting.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Cameron manhandles the real story, scavenging it for his own puny narrative purposes. It's a film made with boorish confidence and zero sensitivity, big and dumb and hulking.