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Why Titanic Is a Terrible Movie

The blockbuster to end all blockbusters, 1997’s Titanic, directed by James Cameron was for many years the highest grossing movie in box office history. Setting off a chain reaction that would infect everything from pop culture to the antique market, Titanic is considered by many to be one of the best and most romantic movies of all time. I on the other hand loath Titanic for its sappy, sentimental story which left me rolling my eyes at the end of the movie.

Why People Absolutely Adore Titanic…

Titanic was released in cinemas a few days before Christmas in 1997 and would go onto make $2.187 billion dollars at the box office. Yes, I just wrote billion. I know I still can’t believe it either. Titanic was made for $200 million and for many years would be included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest grossing movie of all time. Today, that record is held by another mediocre movie with a weak story, Avatar, which made Cameron a billionaire two times over. He’s why I don’t believe in karma.

Titanic has an 88% critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 69%, which means audiences obviously don’t care about Titanic as much as the critics did. While I think the audience score is also too high, I will say that it’s a better reflection on the longevity of this movie. Other than its box office success, not many people I’ve spoken to feel that Titanic holds up over time and I personally never thought it was any good to begin with.

Why I Hate Titanic…

I was 14 years old at the time Titanic came out and wasn’t able to see Titanic in the cinemas until a few weeks after it’s released. Why not? Every theatre was sold out for several days in advance. This was back before the internet, when people actually went out to see movies and selling out multiple showings of one movie wasn’t as uncommon like it is today.

When I finally saw Titanic, I was beyond disappointed. In fact, I’ve been forced to see this movie many times in recent years and every single time I feel nothing but disappointment. A big complain about Titanic has to do with the “history” in the movie. Since everyone knows that the ship goes down… Oh sorry, spoiler alerts for those who don’t know this historical fact… Cameron wrote in one of the most forced love stories I’ve ever seen on film. Yes, the ship hits an iceberg but the crew actually saw the iceberg minutes before the Titanic went down. However, for some reason the ship didn’t change course and therefore, the most devastating part of the film wasn’t even accurate. Up time that point, Cameron spent over 2 hours, and did I mention this film is 195 minutes long, setting up a sappy love story. Then in the end, Jack didn’t even have to die because there was plenty of room for him to lie next to Rose on that board.

Titanic is basically about forbidden love and one we’ve seen that done better about a hundreds times before. I mean, really? You have a movie about one of those most tragic and horrifying ship wrecks in modern history and we have to spend most of the run time with two teenagers from different worlds who are trapped in a forbidden love story? Come on, Cameron! You gave us Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, remember?

In the end, Titanic is not only THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIE EVER MADE, it’s also A TERRIBLE MOVIE.

Probably the only good thing to come out of this movie, other than making James Cameron unnecessarily rich, was that owners of titanic memorabilia/artifacts found their values skyrocket in price. That’s about it though…

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Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialog. Feel free to leave a comment!

Mark Tordai

Screenwriter, journalist, Independent Spirit Awards voter, blogger, cinefile, rugby union enthusiast.

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