History of Titanic soars - but movie plot sinks

By Krista Benson

Guess what? It sank.

     Of course, most people probably didn’t notice.

“Titanic,” starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, was the most expensive movie made to date and has been touted as the “historical movie of the ’90s” by the movie’s creators and even  by many critics. Not quite.

“Titanic” starts off with a few minutes of a present-day underwater exploration of the wreckage of the infamous ship to find “The Heart of the Ocean,” a priceless necklace that was supposed to be on board. The explorers don’t find the necklace, but they do find a drawing of a woman wearing the necklace. Rose, an elderly woman, sees the news coverage of the expedition and calls the explorers.

Rose is then flown to the exploration ship because of her claim of being the woman in the drawing. She then tells her amazing story of love, loss and bravery.

From that point on, you know that “Titanic” is nothing more than a love story set on the Titanic. Young Rose is a rebellious rich girl, on board with her mother and fiancé to head home. The problem? She hates her restrictive life.

Enter Jack, a rambling artist from Wisconsin, headed home via a ship ticket that he won in poker.

They are destined to never meet, but (in a plot twist that can’t even be considered a plot twist) when Jack sees Rose about to attempt suicide, he saves her life and they begin a friendship — and more.

Jack and Rose fall in love as he teaches her how to throw off the shackles of wealth that she has been struggling against her whole life. Rose’s fiancé, who resembles a Disney villain, gets jealous and plants the priceless necklace on Jack and claims that he stole it.

About this time, the boat finally runs into the iceberg that is its downfall.

Jack is arrested and is handcuffed in the bowels of the ship. Of course, this is where the Titanic began to flood after holes were punched in it by the iceberg.

While “Titanic” was entertaining, it was overrated. The visual effects were amazing and history buffs will enjoy the occasional accurate fact (such as the lack of sufficient lifeboats), but the movie is incredibly predictable.

Rose escapes her fiancé as they begin boarding the lifeboats and goes to save Jack. It would have been a part of the movie full of anticipation … except you had seen an old Rose at the beginning of the movie. You knew that they would get out of the water-filled corridors because you knew that she would survive.

This leads to the most visually stunning point of the movie — when the rear part of the ship breaks from the front, stands on end and sinks into the Atlantic.

Rose and Jack fall into the ocean when the rear sinks. Naturally, Rose survives and Jack dies.

Predictability of the plot is the downfall of this movie. This movie is the highest class of eye candy, but the plot would have sunk like the Titanic had it not been floating on historical background.

“The historical triumph of the ’90s” it is not, but “Titanic” is a satisfying flick. There’s room for improvement, but it is nothing if not entertaining.