Titanic 3D

Directed by James Cameron

(PG-13)

***

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Cinema’s 1997 sensation has aged “surprisingly well,” said Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel. Fifteen years on, the dialogue is still “peppered with groaners” and the whole thing runs too long, but Titanic plays in 3-D just the way the original edition did—as a meticulous re-creation of a great tragedy “wrapped in a corny, but fun and entertaining, yarn.” Today’s 16-year-old girls might not swoon over the young Leonardo DiCaprio as their forebears did, said Nick Pinkerton in The Village Voice. But it’s a revelation to rediscover how easily the actor once conveyed simple joy. His youthful sparkle makes clearer than ever that the ship’s terrifying demise was actually “a Happily Ever After in disguise”—a way to snuff out the central romance before time’s complications could tarnish it. “Did Titanic need to be in 3-D?” said Rene Rodriguez in The Miami Herald. “Of course not,” but the reward is the chance to see this old-fashioned spectacle on a big screen again. Kate Winslet is “more radiant than you remembered,” and the ship’s sinking is just as wrenching. All of it “still holds up, no apologies necessary.”