Titanic (1997)

Jocks, who had spent the previous decade slapping each other on their backs and paying lip service to Cameron’s brand of “feminism” (i.e., forcing Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver to suck it up and learn how to do chin-ups) suddenly went apeshit at the perceived sellout found within Winslet’s gorgeously curved, indolently feminine form, to say nothing of Leonardo DiCaprio’s own willowy dimensions. Apparently, a single girl spitting a loog in a cad’s face doesn’t quite hold the same psychosexual, XY-appeal as a sweaty Amazon ripping an android in two while protecting her surrogate child.

[…]

Like Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, the brutal efficiency with which disaster is meted out (two words: propeller guy) is terrifying, relentless, and, in the absence of the sort of grand themes (war, injustice) that usually “excuse” violence, oddly dignified.

— Eric Henderson & Jake Cole (Slant Magazine)

Jack is sincere but not humorless. He knows how to get out of a scrap and fake his way to the top, although his heart lies with that which he should not covet. He wants love above all else and he’ll sink to the bottom of the ocean rather than lose it. All that and he could dance. Essentially, he was Romeo [i.e. Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996)] with some initiative.

— Kayleigh Donaldson (Paste Magazine)

The difficulty with [Titanic], of course, that we know Rose doesn’t die, though if she suddenly did and we flashed forward again to discover Gloria Stuart is actually just a senile old lady playing a prank on the treasure hunters, my goodness what a film we’d have gotten then.

[…]

The Postman was a notorious flop, Tomorrow Never Dies outperformed the previous film in the 007 franchise but didn’t even touch Titanic’s contrails, and tired-ass stuff like Home Alone 3 was not going to steal box office from a much-hyped event movie featuring two hot young actors who explicitly bang during it.

— Kenneth Lowe (Paste Magazine)