Tora Tora Tora meets 30 Seconds Over Tokyo

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2001)

I have seen and appreciated more films than anyone else I've ever met. I generally have a preconceived notion of what a movie is going to be about before I go and I am rarely wrong. I had decided I wanted to see this movie the first time I saw a trailer for it many months ago. It looked like a well-done epic and I wasn't disappointed, even though I grew weary of the more than usual hype that preceded it. I was hoping to have a ticket price worth of entertainment, not a soul enriching experience of nirvanic proportions, as some viewers seem to expect based on other comments I've read. Get over it people, it's a film. The criteria should be, "Does it entertain 'me'". Well, this movie far surpassed my deliberately lowered expectations.
I think I have seen every action and "effects" movie ever made, having been a fan of such entertainment since the 1950's. I own copies of everything worth watching more than once. I went into this movie hoping it wouldn't be as much of a disappointment as Saving Private Ryan. It was far far better. The improvement to me was the much-increased plausibility of the character's stories. While Ryan was a contrived and twisted premise from a single bare thread of a real example, this movie was rich with the examples from many real life people and very real events. For example, it has surprised every young person I have talked with for them to learn there really were two young pilots who tore to a remote airfield and flew alone into the sky to challenge the collective assemblage of the Japanese naval air forces during the attack (so little real history is taught in schools now days) and I am still rankled to know the one instigator as portrayed by Affleck was denied the Medal of Honor because of his commander's mean spirited rejection because he had not been ordered into the air (a very real life travesty to fail to recognize amazing courage). How's that for a missed story line?
I can also easily forgive the filmmakers in trying to present many stories in the form of the two main characters, Affleck and Hartnett, to tell a broader story of America. It saved time in trying to get the audience to buy into them emotionally. Sure some of the film wasn't historically accurate, so what, it's supposed to entertainment first and foremost. No historically based film I have ever seen has been completely accurate and those that have come close to that kind of reality have been roundly criticized for lacking "action", as laughable as that irony is. Sure, an excellent film could have been made in two hours of footage, but instead we are treated with a lot more visually rich entertainment for our money - a real bargain. I also got the unmistakable impression that this was an attempt at much more than just a film about the attack on Pearl. It was an "hommage" to America's efforts in the war - all of America.
The love story was actually an extra bit of realism many people are enjoying. It may have been added to attract more female viewers, but so what, aren't they deserving of some consideration by Hollywood too? I cannot begin to count the number of people of my father's generation whom I have heard while I was growing up tell how they met and fell in love during the incredible turmoil of that war. This is the telling of another story in it's own right, of the love and loss of the American women who endured it on the home front. The dull heartache of that kind of empty fear was the reality of their war as they loved and waited for their men to return home - if they did. Sure, a magnificent war story could have been told without the love interest entirely, but it would have been a different movie and far less of a moneymaker, so it may never have been made (this is called economic reality). The truth is one must attract a broader audience to turn a profit these days. I can say I was very surprised to see quite a number of unaccompanied females in the audience - almost unheard of for an action movie. Two teenage girls who came alone sat next to me in the theater and they were absolutely transfixed by the action and moved by the romance. I have NEVER seen another war film attract young female moviegoers this way. There were dozens of them in the theater.
This is one of the few films to ever impress me with it's combat special effects. Not the newness or originality of them, or of raising the gee-whiz level of what Hollywood could do (who really cares about that anyway except overactive immature males), but the accomplishment of something far more difficult; stunning realism. To achieve realism, sometimes, less is more. I worked within the Department of Defense for over 31 years. I saw and participated in 4 wars in the military and as a civilian. This film is the closest to the actual experience of the reality of combat I have seen to date, including the vaunted "Ryan", which was more of a presentation of the grit realism of war. Some detractions I have read clearly weren't paying attention or perhaps the closest they've been to this kind of real war is whichever film they last saw. This film achieved the mechanical realism of the machinery of war. It also contained, hands down, the best aerial combat photography I have ever seen (though much was special effects). The feel of reality was almost startling. Not all of it was completely real as it still disappointingly had some of the usual overdone Hollywood pyrotechnic explosions with tons of gasoline to awe the naive audience, but the most real thus far. Add together sequences from this film, Ryan and a few very chosen sequences from the Thin Red Line and you have quite a stunning collection. I can't include the Viet Nam era war epics as they are too close to home; all of those attempts miss the mark with far too much overdone Hollywoodistic pyrotechnic depictions of action.
I really enjoyed the performances in this film. All of the younger cast members gave me my money's worth, but I felt Affleck did quite an exceptional job with the heavy task he was given: to make such an over-the-top character believable - he was. Beckinsale's character was absolutely charming and I could easily see several young men fighting over such a beautiful actress. She did a very good job with the American accent too. Cuba Gooding's character seemed almost gratuitous and difficult to dovetail into an already packed story line but I'm glad he was there as he always gives a great performance and he certainly didn't disappoint me in this outing. Also surprisingly entertaining was James King as Betty. She really came across well on the big screen and I'd like to see more of her in the future. I was suitably impressed by Voight as Roosevelt and by Baldwin as Doolittle. Likewise, Mako as Yamamoto and Colm Feore as Kimmel were a valued addition, worthy of praise for their craft. They were fun to watch work. All gave great praise to the historical character's they portrayed with an integrity of realism not easily achievable. The overall quality of the rest of the cast was near impeccable with the only character I felt obviously underutilized being Tom Sizemore. I'd like to see him in more films with meatier roles. I also realize this film was already getting long - approaching The Longest Day in its scope and the length of its cast. Come to think of it, with a little more work and with Disney coughing up some more bucks this could have surpassed even that epic in actual run-time. It sure outdoes it in quality of product. I am going to supremely disappointed if this does not get an Oscar for effects and cinematography. The camera work was a real joy to watch with the only exception being the strangely blurry-lens effects thrown in the hospital scenes when it was under attack.
Finally, in these types of films I always wonder how they are able to find enough Japanese actors to fill the cast. But those actors used here were quite excellent and gave heroic dignity to a very difficult task - to portray their historical countrymen without raising concerns of racism and engendering new nationalistic rancor against the Japanese. I would have liked to have seen more of Mako or Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who played Genda, but I guess that film was Tora Tora Tora, which should be seen for historic comparison.