Not bad,but not great...(SPOILERS!!!)

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2001)

If you name your movie Pearl Harbor and advertise it(as the studio has,and as have the actors in press junkets,and behind the scenes looks on such shows as ET and E!News Daily)as being ABOUT Pearl Harbor,you should have more than about 50 minutes of a three hour movie in which you are actually at Pearl Harbor. The first hour,with the love story,was cliche to be sure,but not THAT bad. But it was almost like watching an entire movie before we even get to the events at Pearl Harbor. The battle sequence is superbly orchestrated,but I was disappointed that aside from Cuba Gooding,his captain and Cuba's mess attendant friend on the Arizona,no attention was payed to the men who actually lost their lives that day. By that I mean that not much attention was paid to them as humans. Instead,we get faceless men being blown away and dying without ever getting to know them and thus the loss seems to be diluted on film. As a person who is fascinated by Pearl Harbor and the horrible events of that day,it was sad to see such short shrift paid to the men who gave their lives. Also,the single most cataclysmic event of that day,the bombing and sinking of the Arizona,gets a big build-up,with the torpedo's-eye view of the bombing,but when the ship convulses as if breaking in half from the inside after the main battery goes up,the camera goes away and never comes back! The film is book-ended with shots of the Arizona memorial,yet we are not made to feel much about the loss. Instead we are thrust right back into the relationship of the two friends as they man their planes and down some enemy bombers. Then,after the attack,we get them going on the mission to bomb Tokyo. This film is really about them and should have been called Rafe and Danny. Don't get me wrong,I'm not hungry to see men die and suffer,but if you name your film Pearl Harbor,and especially in the wake of realistic films like Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line,I'm expecting a little more of the history and yes,the horror of war. Young people who know little of the events of Dec. 7,1941 may come away from this film thinking of it as a romantic time interrupted by a big battle,instead of the tragedy that it was,and that would be a shame. Perhaps I shouldn't carp so much,but when I see Michael Bay interviewed,saying that he stopped filming once,because one of the extras was laughing,and he berated him in front of the whole crew,asking,"Do you think Pearl Harbor was funny!??!",and comments on how much they reverenced the veterans and advisers,I would think that they'd put more emphasis on that day and not the romance.