I don’t remember a lot of specifics about watching Titanic in theaters in 1997, but I was fifteen years old, which means my two primary concerns in life were 1) locating romance, and 2) not dying in a nautical catastrophe. So I think we can safely assume that I fucking loved that movie. I watched Titanic again on TV with my sister a few years later, making sure to switch it off right before the whole iceberg thingy (stressful!)—a strategy that turns the movie into a pleasant romp about two teenagers who take a perfectly safe boat ride and then bang in a horseless carriage. The end. Charming! Watching Titanic for a third time, for the purposes of this essay, I cannot imagine what I was thinking that second time around. I could not wait to get to the second half and watch all these motherfuckers drown.

Titanic is three hours and fourteen minutes long, which—fun fact—is longer than the actual journey of the Titanic (this is not a fact). It is sooooo ballsy to just assume people will watch your movie for three hours and fourteen minutes! Especially when everyone already knows exactly what happens in the end (spoiler: the boat is Keyser Söze). Sorry, Epcot Center, I’mma let you finish, but James Cameron’s balls are like the giantest balls of all time. It would take three hours and fourteen minutes just to walk around the circumference of James Cameron’s balls.

Anyway, here’s what happens in Titanic. In case you forgot, it is terrible:

It starts out on a modern-times submarine. Bill Paxton is snooping around on the ocean floor trying to find a big necklace to impress Britney Spears. James Cameron himself has literally done this, and Paxton’s character is clearly Cameron’s idea of what a cool person is like—he does stuff like wear male earrings and say “sayonara” in a sarcastic voice. Awww yeeeeah. Pretty cool. Bill Paxton finds this old safe in the ocean, expecting it to be full of Titanic diamonds, but instead it’s just an old doodle of some boobs. Total rip-off!…OR IS IT?

An old lady recognizes her boob-doodle on the news and goes to visit Bill Paxton on James Cameron’s rock-and-roll treasure boat, where they make her watch a gruesome CGI reenactment of the Titanic sinking (I believe the working title is Hey, Granny, Fuck Your PTSD). Then she tells her story, which is extremely not pertinent to treasure-hunting, unless by treasure you mean three hours of nonsense, garbage, terror, death, and Italian stereotypes.

Turns out, that old lady used to be Kate Winslet, and one time she rode a big boat named Titanic. But she wasn’t too happy about it! “It was the ship of dreams to everyone else,” she says. “To me, it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains.” Yes. Because generations of imprisonment, rape, and violently coerced labor are just like having to marry Billy Zane and live in a fur-lined bon-bon palace. (Also, it’s 1912 right now, which means that real slavery has only been over for like…fifty years? Maybe a little too soon for the flippant slavery metaphors?) She continues, “I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it, an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts, and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared, or even noticed.” Nobody notices me! Everyone is so fake! My polo horse is the wrong color! As you can see, Kate Winslet’s life is just like slavery. She decides to just kill herself immediately so she doesn’t have to face another terrible, terrible cotillion.

Luckily, along comes Leonardo “I Am Definitely Wearing Lipstick” DiCaprio, who is traveling to America with his friend Fabrizio (Human Olive Garden Commercial). Leonardo DiCaprio rescues her from suicide, and she repays him by letting her entire family treat him like human feces for the last few days of his life. Then they fall in love.

Leonardo shows up at fancy dinner even though he is a stinky poor and Kate Winslet’s mom hates him: “My mother looked at him like an insect—a dangerous insect that must be squashed quickly.” After dinner, Leonardo says, “Time for me to go row with the other slaves!” Again with the slave thing. PLEASE READ A BOOK.

In an act of defiance, Kate Winslet sneaks downstairs to party with the simple folk. And look who’s down there dancing a jig! “Aaaaaaaay! It’s-a me, Fabrizio!” Fabrizio treats everybody to all-you-can-eat breadsticks and then invents the Mafia. Can someone tell me why this movie wasn’t entirely about Fabrizio? At the very least, could I get a fan edit called Titanic 2: Fabrizio’s Quest? (It is a quest for lasagna.)

Next there’s a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t involve Fabrizio at ALL, so I’m on strike. It’s the Celine Dion part (“I’m flying!”), the boob-sketching part, and the aforementioned banging part. All of it is incredibly awkward and boring. Then Theoden, King of Rohan, drives the boat into this big iceberg and the ocean starts coming inside the boat, where the people go.

Bill Paxton interrupts the old lady’s endless fucking story and is like, “BOAT SCIENCE. EXPOSITION. BOAT SCIENCE,” for a while. Nobody cares, Bill!

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio run around the boat in circles for a long time holding hands. I think we’re supposed to admire Kate Winslet for having terrific moxie or something, but really all she does is yell about how no one can tell her what to do and then just does whatever Leonardo DiCaprio tells her to do. (Sometimes he tells her things like this: “You’re so stupid! Why did you do that? You’re so stupid, Rose!!!” and “SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”)

Fabrizio shows up (FINALLY) to tell them that they’re fucked because all the lifeboats are gone: “The boats-a! They’re all-a gone!” “Where’s your life jacket, Fabrizio?” Leonardo asks. “Ees-a okay!” says Fabrizio. “I’ve-a got this-a beeg ravioli! Abbondanza!” Then he drowns (oops).

Fortunately for Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio turns out to be the world’s number-one expert in surviving ocean liner disasters—offering genius advice like, “We have to stay on the ship as long as possible! Come on!” Eventually, though, they end up in the ocean, where Kate Winslet sits on a board and cries. Leonardo makes one attempt to get on the board with her, but falls off, so he decides to just die instead. Kate Winslet is sad.

Finally, even though she knew Bill Paxton was searching for the necklace, and he patiently listened to her stupid story (it’s like she writes erotic fan fiction about herself), that old lady just goes and drops it into the ocean at the end!!! Like, seriously, old lady? First of all, you’re a dick. Second of all, that necklace belongs in a museum. Third of all, you’re a dick! I wish Bill Paxton would drop YOU into the ocean at the end.

The end.

RATING: 3/10 DVDs of The Fugitive.