Not even an "A" for effort

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2001)

Really, to be totally fair, I should see this movie again, taking a notepad with me so I can note all that's wrong with it. But as it stands, maybe I'll be able to stay under the 1,000 word limit.
I suppose if you had no idea what Pearl Harbor and World War II were all about and weren't aware of the mediocre at best talent of Michael Bay,, and you like silly love stories, you might think this movie is pretty good. I guess I don't inherently have a problem with setting a silly love story against the backdrop of such a serious topic. Even after seeing the movie, I still don't really have a big problem with it. Even some "classic" Pearl Harbor films include silly love stories (From Here to Eternity, In Harms Way). The problem with this one is that it's so BADLY written. Randall Wallace and Bay should be ashamed of themselves. The kind of simple, silly and chemistry-free dialogue written between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsdale is the kind you'll find in classic films of the 40's. It was effective then, but it doesn't work today, not even in a period piece. The dialogue written for the love story in Titanic ain't Shakespeare, but for the most part, you're not sitting there groaning every time one of the characters opens their mouth like you are in this film.

I'm no expert on World War II and Pearl Harbor, far from it. However, I have seen many classic and current films on the subject, and have a friend who IS an expert, so I think I know my fair share. Of course Bay is going to take liberties in making his film, every filmmaker does. Apparently, the Japanese fighter planes were not the same color in the movie as they were in real life. Things like that aren't going to bother me so much, but when only two planes were able to get off the ground during the actual assault, and those two planes are piloted by our Heroes in Pearl Harbor, that bothers me. It bothers me that Bay has his Japanese fighter planes flying over a baseball game that's going on at 8 in the morning because he thinks it's a good looking shot. I'm sure there are plenty of other glaring liberties taken by Bay in this film, but I'll leave them to the experts to point out.
However, I do have one more fact related complaint about the film, that being Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character. Here we have, without a doubt, one of the most worthless characters in film history. Before I saw the movie, I thought that the character was just going to be a token black character added to make the film appeal to a broader demographic. I figured, since black men were pretty much limited to the kitchen on Naval ships in those days, that the character we see on the machine gun torrents in the trailers is fictional. Well, here's a news flash, he was a REAL person, we find out at the end, who received an award for his "brave" service! I certainly hope that Cuba had more scenes that were left on the cutting room floor for some reason, because if he agreed to do this silly, insignificant part in the film based on what I saw of him, I'm really disappointed. What an embarrassment to Gooding and his entire race. Bay should be ashamed for the way this REAL character is handled in the film (all three minutes of his screen time).
Everyone likes to get emotionally involved in a film, and I'm no different. I'll admit, I found the trailer moving. I thought for sure I'd at least get a little weepy-eyed at some point of Pearl Harbor. As it turns out, Bay fails again. This film has instantly made my "Top Five Most Manipulative Films" list. It's embarrassing the length that Bay goes to, especially at the end, to try to get you to cry. A film like Saving Private Ryan can move you just by it's sheer horror and the nonverbal acting of it's characters. Wallace and Bay just POUR it on, though, in this film to the point where you're drowning. SPOILER AHEAD SPOILER AHEAD
The manner in which Josh Hartnett's character dies is really badly written. It almost seems like they thought that Hartnett's plane going down wasn't heroic enough. He had to save his best buddy one more time after a VERY awkward confrontation with a Japanese patrol on the China coast in order to cement his status as a hero. Again, this is just bay trying to POUR on the sentimentality. Someone should have told him that the EVENTS THAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED between 12/41 and 4/42 provide more than enough sentiment by themselves. END SPOILER
I didn't hate this movie. At the very least, my interest in the subject is higher than it's ever been, and I'm sure that the film will inspire a wave of new found interest in the subject by a new generation. So Bay does deserve some credit for that, but not too much. A better film about Pearl Harbor would have raised awareness, too. I'm just really disappointed that they took such a great and important subject and turned up with these results. I thought the actors, for the most part, did the best they could with the script. Alec Baldwin, in particular, was quite good as Dolittle. Some of his really silly lines will ultimately be memorable because he did such a good job of delivering them. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was, of course, the best part of the film, though it went on too long. Someone needed to tell Bay that just because the sinking of the Titanic lasted 45 minutes (screen time) doesn't mean that the bombing of Pearl Harbor had to last that long.
Bay's biggest problem is that he's just no good at telling stories. Everytime I thought I was going to be moved, he cut. Every time he had a good idea or scene or camera angle going, he cut. Then, he sticks with scenes and ideas that go nowhere (like the train scene near the beginning). Who cares?
A lot of the problems I have with a film can be overlooked if it's a silly, fun film like The Mummy Returns. That crew is allowed to defy the laws of physics and reality in general, because it's a fantasy film. I grant the makers of Pearl Harbor no such leeway. No matter how entertaining some parts of it may have been, I can't overlook the glaring problems that a film about such a serious topic is so bogged with.
Grade: C-