For my money, this is right on target!

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2001)

Contains spoiler!
I am compelled to write something positive since there are so many negative comments posted here. My guess is that they were written by people who simply do not relate at all to real events or understand how Hollywood should portray them. Also I would guess that most are written by people who were not alive when it all happened.
Compared to Private Ryan and Titanic, this is better. It is better entertainment. It does not grind your nose in the gore. It does portray rather accurately the moods and feelings of the time, and I know because I WAS alive then. A little too young to have participated but old enough to be seriously affected and to know what was going on.
Yes, Tora and Midway are great documentaries and the more personalized 30 Seconds over Tokyo were good movies for their time. But this combines the best of all those films with the movie technology of today and I found the results outstanding.
The love story was much better and more likely than Titanic's contrived unlikely pairing of a steerage passenger with a first class passenger. And Fatso Kate of Titanic does not hold a candle to Pearl's Kate. Leanardo DeCrapio also is not in the same league as Affleck and Hartnet.
The concept of two people getting together after thinking a common person has been killed is very real. A close personal friend of mine was shot down in Viet Nam and after four years was presumed dead. His wife was granted a divorce and married one of his squadron members. When the POWs were released in 1973 he was among them. He subsequently married the wife of a squadron member who was killed in action.
Compared to CTHD or all the other forgettable films of 2000, this is a real crowd pleaser from my point of view, certainly the best of 2001 so far!