With this budget, an astonishing lack of star power

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2005)

Well, Industrial Light & Magic certainly earned their fees on this one. The battle sequences are truly something to behold. But that still leaves almost 2 hours of movie to sit through. The framing story is OK, but simply doesn't match the rest of the film. There is, for the most part, no one on screen that demands attention. That has that special something, that charm, that charisma, that makes you unable to tear your eyes away from the screen. That thing I call star power. This lack is amazing in a film with this kind of budget. Affleck doesn't have it. Josh Hartnett has it even less so. Kate Beckinsale, while very pretty, and a good actress, doesn't have it either. Jon Voight was kind of an odd special case in this film, with his heavy make-up, he didn't look at all like Jon Voight. But he didn't look at all like Roosevelt, either. Now, Alec Baldwin, as much as it pains me to say it, does have it. But he wasn't in the film long enough to make up for the rest of the cast. The definitive Pearl Harbor movie is still "Tora, Tora, Tora." (And for the last part, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo") I gave this one a 6 just due to the amazing visuals in the battle scenes, but if not for that, it would have been a 5.