Plodding and Phony - "Pearl Harbor" Stumbles

I'm not sure even where to begin with this expensive sapfest marketed as a Titanic-est Romance/Thriller.

The two main characters, Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) are childhood friends who are top-notch fighter pilots. Rafe falls for Evelynn (Kate Beckinsale), a military nurse with enough make-up to drown a moose, and then goes off to Britain to fight for the Brits against Germany. He gets shot down and is presumed dead, and Evelynn finds comfort in Danny. They are both deported to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii where the definitely live it up. They enjoy a passionate relationship several months later, and then (surprise surprise) Rafe returns. They all are involved in a silly love triangle, and then the night after his return, Pearl Harbor is attacked.

The whole "romance" is a silly soap opera that draws little emotion. Ben Affleck's goofy southern accent is almost too much to bear, and the image of Evelynn writing sappy prose in a swimsuit with flowers in her hair and a background of crashing waves is laughable. The dialogue was very poor, perhaps characteristic of director Michael Bay. Cheesy lines like "whenever I see a sunset, I think of you" are rampant through the movie. How any director can expect to establish a believable romance on that is unthinkable.

To make matters worse, the romance takes up more than half the movie (which is a monstrous three hours long). It isn't even relevant to the Pearl Harbor attack, other than the fact that Danny and Rafe are two pilots. There are the occasional news briefs about tensions and shots of Japanese leaders planning the attack, but these are not tied into the romance at all. The movie is almost two movies mashed into one. On the one hand you have a love triangle between three people, and on the other hand you have political hostilities between the U.S. and Japan. How they are connected I don't know.

Perhaps even more telling of the irrelevance of the romance to Pearl Harbor is that nothing about it would be changed by a change in historical setting.

Rafe's return by no means produced the shock it intended for the simple fact that everyone expected it. Even though the laws of physics would have expected Rafe to die (come on, crashing into the ocean at hundreds of miles and hour and he survives?), you could tell that Hollywood fully intended to resurrect him. The plane dived under the water fully intact, consequently I predicted the rest of the plot after seeing the crash.

And then there were the supporting actors. We could have done without FDR's (Jon Voight) theatrics, especially with the cheesy attempt at standing. It simply was not inspiring. Further, everything he said were nothing more than political cliches, without any sort of meat on them. Some of the quotes were straight from his mouth, but the movie could have done a better job at trying to determine what he might have actually said at a meeting with his advisors. Come now, does anyone really think he sat their and made patriotic speeches to his advisors over whether or not we should go to war with Japan?

And then there was the cook played by Cuba Gooding Jr. Where did he come from? Out of nowhere he is plugged into the movie, poorly developed, and never actually ties into the main story. The closest he gets is when he waves to Evelynn during a mass funeral. During his short life span in the movie, he seemed nothing more than a weak filler, as if the film needed it at three hours long.

But the attack on Pearl Harbor itself was spectacular. The visual effects are worth seeing, and frankly are the only redeeming value of the seven bucks I spent. The Pearl Harbor scene was very real and very frightening, showing quite vividly the horrors of the attack, even though the part where the hands protruding from a hole in a sunken battleship clasp Ben Affleck was rather weak and lacked emotional value.

The movie probably should have wrapped up after the attack, but it just keeps going. General Dolittle (Alec Baldwin) leads a heroic bombing attack on Tokyo. This scene is rather anti-climatic. They bomb a bunch of buildings and get shot at by anti-aircraft guns. Then they crash in China. A brief scene ensues where they are nearly captured by the Japs, and that's it.

We then are zipped back to the summation of the worthless love story between the three, and a rather emotionally shallow Evelynn who greets a dead husband. In my opinion, the entire romance was summed up the night before the attack, after they have the little brawl and then proceed to make up. What is there left to tell? There isn't, so let's get some Japs in here and blow up some stuff, wrap it up, and call it a great movie. No thanks.

My advice: Go buy tickets for the movie, but come in an hour and a half late. You won't miss a thing, trust me.

Ahem, Mouseman, you wouldn't happen to want to divulge the identity of the lucky man who inherits Ms. Beckinsale, do you? I really don't want to waste my hard-earned shillings on this picture.

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Pigsnie, Vicar of Fries!

Saw Pearl Harbor. The actual attack itself--awesome! Even the planes coming in inland . . . my grandfather saw this film with me. He said it took him back to December 7. (That's a tribute, believe me. He doesn't like anything, not even his own grandkids )

But like me, he thought the love story was stupid and messed up a perfectly good war picture. Would have been better if Both Pilots had stayed dead. And the girl too.

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Blonde Klingons: Because it was a good day to dye!

I know exactly what this is going to be: a Titanic wannabe. I hate that type of movie: where the story does not center around the event in it's title. Blasphemy! Call it something else if it's not about the event on the whole. IE: Saving Private Ryan. Imagine if it were called "World War II."

I'll see this movie eventually, but I'll snore through most of it, and I'll only see it because of what I hear are extraordinary action sequences. The $140 million must have been put to SOME good use.

I HATED this movie.

"My heart is with him, but I'll never look into another sunset without thinking of you." PLEASE!!!

I thought the battle scene was too long. What's the point of making it that long? It wasn't exactly shot in real time.

I know that it's meant as a throwback to one of those so-called "golden age" epics, but it JUST DOESN'T WORK.

What really ticked me off was the way the movie used the attack on the harbor as a reason to have Alec Baldwin give a pretentious war monologue about killing the "Jap bastards" before bombing Tokyo. The bombing of Tokyo did indeed happen, but it's like the Pearl Harbor attack is used to propel the story into standard Hollywood-crap mode and let us get the Japs back for blowing us up real good. I'm sorry, when you go for realism, you don't half-a*s it. This is a film that tries to be even-handed for the first two hours (which isn't realistic in itself, because EVERYONE was racist back then), and then out comes the carpet and we can feel OK about being pricks again. I just don't understand it.

Uh, are you seing being mad at "Japs" for that horrid attack was racist? I think I see what you're saying, but your rant seems to have interfered with your clarity.

i just want to reply to what DaMouse said about Cuba's character...his character was put into the movie because his character, Dorie Miller, was in fact exactly wat was sed in the movie, that he was a black cook but shot down like 4 fighter planes and received the Navy Cross for doing so...this is a historical fact about Pearl Harbor so that's y it was put into the movie...that's it

Please put a spoilers notice on your post -- I have not seen the movie and now part of it has been ruined for me.

I'm sure there are other historical facts about the attack that were left out of the movie. One doesn't need to put everything in the movie. Tacking on the Dorie Miller stuff like they did was not doing him or his story justice. And it was out-of-place in the already-too-long movie.

Yeah Allen I realize who Dorie Miller was, but I think ryan paige pretty much summed up why I was knocking his inclusion in the movie. He just looked completely out of place. Very awkward.

i wrote in another Pearl Harbor thread on this -- yes, the dialogue was ghastly, cheesy, phoney, disgusting. However, the desire to entangle real human emotion with the horror of a historical event is a usual film trope and perfectly normal. Usually in war films though, the issue is brotherhood. But, also in relation to films that deal with war or injustice, there's ALWAYS love/family involved. It doesn't usually take up so much of the movie though. I feel the love theme could have been handled better - with a better script and less hogging of the picture, and I'm sure it would have resulted in a much better film.

Dorie Miller - touching on the above ... this is Disney. They wanted historical fact and a black man to ease the tension for any audience member wondering where all the black navymen were and what better way to inspire, and touch on the emotional struggle (racism is the navy, the "little" guy overcoming obstacles and succeeding) than using 1) Cuba Gooding Jr. and 2) a heroe's story featuring a black navy man. for all those who might think I'm racist because of this statement, don't bother - I'm black and proud of it.

SPOILER

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Pigsnie: Not like it's hard to figure out when watching the film well before it happens, but the dude who gets the chick is Affleck ... maybe. He's the surviving one but by then she's moved on to the other guy, so who knows. she was expecting to move on with Danny cause uh, he got her preggie. I'm sure, as "loving" as she is, her character would have easily switched back to a life with Ralph. (the name is spelled Ralph somewhere early on in the movie, so I'm not mistaken with that, i don't think)

I have no problem with the actual REAL-LIFE raid of Tokyo. For the first 2/3 of the movie, it tries to be even-handed and somewhat P.C. Which isn't historically accurate at all. I can accept this. But this last third of the movie, it switches into all-out American propaganda/Action hero mode, and we all cheer because we got back the Japs for sneaking up on us. I can't stand this. Either the movie should have been good ol' fashioned, blow up the Japanese for gettin' us, or it should have stayed p.c. and the characters should have accepted their missions with remorse for what they were about to do.

Also, they crash land in China after the raid. But the movie hasn't even established that the Japanese are in China. When you have a three hour movie, you can't leave scenes that are essential to the story of the movie. It's retarded.

Correct me if I am wrong -
The Pearl harbour attack was a last ditch. A small Island country like Japan was loosing a LOT of the youth and spreading thru most of the Asian pacific was wearing them thin. Near the end of the war, Japan could hardly support it's army and the Kamakazi was a last ditch to hit America where it hurts.
The bombing of Hiroshima was in retaliation as America was only interested in 'holding' Japan at bay and attacking Germany, which at this time had a far superior war machines and armies than Japan.
The bomb that was use on Hiroshima was actually stolen from Germany which at this time was far ahead of the US in bomb research. The American stolen the two bombs that the German had manufactured and used them both on Japanese soil. Their original target was actually Tokyo but during the flight, the bomber ran out of fuel and just DROP the bomb onto any Japanese soil. Hiroshima was never the intended target as it was TOO small and was NOT a good military target. (Imagine the number of death if the bomb was drop on Tokyo!!)
So in the movie that say America attack Japan cause of the Pearl Harbour incident, it was pretty much accurate as previously, the US never saw Japan as much of a threat.

DoomsDay

What kind of history books have you been reading? Were they, by any chance, written by someone like Jim Marrs (a man with no respect for the facts)?

Why, since the Germans had already surrendered, was the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima designed to just hold Japan at bay while attacking Germany? We weren't attacking Germany anymore. They had surrendered months earlier.

How was the attacking of Pearl Harbor a "last ditch" effort, and what does it have to do with being "near the end of the war"? The Pearl Harbor attack was three and a half years before the end of the war with Japan.

The bomb used on Hiroshima was not stolen from the Germans. We had German scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project, but they were Germans who had fled Germany rather than Germans we captured or anything like that.

Hiroshima was always intended to be a target. The order was written up with Hiroshima as the target for these reasons: 1. The size and topography of the city made it suitable for testing the destructive capabilities of the atomic bomb, and for confirming the destructive effects later. 2. There was a concentration of military troops, installations, and factories in Hiroshima that had been spared previous bombing.

What Id liketo know is why the US had to drop the A bomb on Nagasaki? Hadnt the US won the war already? I kinda think the US in those days hated the japanese more than the germans becuz the US fire bombed tokyo too and killed a ton of japanese civilians & destroyed that whole city. And then the US also put japanese-americans in camps but they left the german americans & italian americans alone. Why is that?

Ps. Thounght oppenheimer masterminded the bomb, altho his name does sound german?

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God save Freddie Mercury!

Oppenheimer was an American, born in New York City. But others, such as Einstein, were also instrumental in the theory and implementation behind the development of the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer was a driving force behind the development, though, and he is considered the Father of the Atomic Bomb. His parents were German immigrants.

And there were some Germans in Internment Camps. My grandmother worked at Seagoville during the War, and she noted many times about how there were Germans and Japanese people there. The putting of Germans in camps was not anywhere near as widespread.

Sorry I have worded it wrong.. as for where I read the book.. I honestly can't tell you.. it was a while ago .. America was at the time concentrating their full power against the Germans.. even though Japan HAS conquerer more of the Asian region.. US did not intervine due to them having to pit their full energy against the Germans. Japan was already spreading themself thin and they know that it was only a matter of time before the American steps in, thus Japan hit first and hit hard.
It makes no military sense to attack and sacrifice both your pilots and war planes - Japan was already running out of ammunition. I am sure there will be some American history book that says differently...
As for the atomic bomb and how it was made through the Mahattan project as such - that is debatable and I am not going to get into it... the US military is well known for publising how one weapons work amazing well but when put to the test, nothing works.
It's war time, you do not take a weapon of destruction and drop it on some remote (ok, it's large) area of your enemies soil to make a point. You DROP it into the capital city. That is why most, if not all, of the nuclear warheads now are pointing at each of the world's Capital cities.
In a radio speech to the nation on August 9, 1945, President Truman called Hiroshima "a military base." It seems likely, considering his July 25 diary entry, that he was not aware that Hiroshima was a city. Otherwise, he was being untruthful about the nature of the target.

DoomsDay

Well I dont like what the US did to Hiroshima but I like even less what they did to Naga. Pigsnie says it was the lrgest catholic city in Japan and not much military. Anyhoo I dont like civilians being bombed, look at what the US did to Vietnam too with agent orange. I feel sorry for the vietnamese, when I am rich, I am going over there & start a hospital.

Uh, didn't the vietnamese bomb/sacrifice their own countrymen/women to get at some of our soliders, or is that all bull? If it is true, I have little sympathy for them.

He probably killed Kennedy, too. Why don't you go and find some actual facts before you go spouting off about what you know and don't know. You no nothing about history, nothing about military strategy. All you know is how to pull stuff out of your posterior and present it as if it were truth.

I love how when confronted with the actual facts, you retreat to "well, that's debateable". Facts are not debateable. They are facts. There were four targets decided on by the U.S. military. Tokyo was not on that list. Hiroshima was, as was Nagasaki. The plan was to bomb Hiroshima. They didn't decide to bomb it because they were running out of gas. Or are you suggesting that the pilots were going to disobey their direct orders and bomb Tokyo instead of the target they were ordered to bomb.

As for the Manhattan Project. All their work was well documented. The story told is the true story. The idea that we found the A-Bombs in Germany and then dropped them on Japan because we couldn't make them on our own is ludicrous and has never been even hinted as fact by any respectable historian. The idea is made-up out of whole cloth. You could just as easily say we found the bombs on Mars.

When Pearl Harbor happened, the U.S. military was not engaged against anyone. We weren't fighting anywhere. We weren't consentrating on Germany, as we weren't even in the War. The troops were at home. We weren't directly intervening anywhere.

As for the Kamakazi, the Japanese used the strategy of sacrificing pilots and planes in an effort to cause the most damage. It was a military strategy. It wasn't designed because they were desperate (as evidenced by the fact that they weren't desperate when they started using the strategy). They were not running short of ammo in 1941. And not only will American history books say that but every other truthful history book will say it, too. You can pretend the facts are the way you want them all you like, but it doesn't change the facts or the truth. So keep pretending you know what you are talking about even though you are full of it and completely misinformed about nearly every aspect of the War, and the rest of us will concentrate on paying attention to the actual facts and history rather than your made-up gibberish.