Worse than you've heard - Shows a shameless lack of respect for war that borders on immoral

Rating: 1/10 (7 June 2001)

Congress should pass a law prohibiting both Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer from making films - especially together. With the likes of Armageddon and this film under their belts, who knows what horrors they plan to unleash upon us next?
Pearl Harbor is the worse kind of insult to both good taste and intelligence. The characters are 100% lifeless, and they speak mostly in the language of catch-phrases ("Not anxious to die, sir. Just anxious to matter.") and middle school love letters ("You're so beautiful it hurts."). As if to compensate, Hans Zimmer provides an oppressive score to tell the audience exactly what to feel at any given moment. If the music actually spoke, it would say things like "Now is the time to feel patriotic!" and "Why aren't you crying? Can't you tell something sad just happened?" Add to this visuals that, while impressive, are nothing out of the ordinary, and you're left with a movie with a plastic atmosphere.
In of itself, this is all bad enough, but Pearl Harbor gets even worse. In strictest terms, it is a war movie - but only because it takes place during a war. The first half of the film is nothing more than bad romantic drama, and, once the raid on Pearl Harbor finally begins, the movie plays less like a period war piece than it does like a bad summer action film (which is precisely what it is). Also, because the movie is rated PG-13, the violence is muted to the point of near-bloodlessness. Now, in a true war classic such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, I can except such muted violence because it is indicative of the time in which it was made. However, to minimize the violence to this kind of an extent in a modern film is unnecessary and therefore an insult to the memory of what truly happened, but Bay and Bruckheimer aren't interested in honoring the memory of those who died. They are interested in making money, and so we get a movie custom-made to be The Biggest Movie of the Summer by playing on the United States' collective patriotic consciousness. Hmmm, makes me wonder how well this will play in other countries.
Of course, with all that's already wrong with Pearl Harbor, one cannot expect Bay and Bruckheimer to pay much attention to such small details as historical accuracy and setting. According to Bay and Bruckheimer, Hawaii was, in 1941, a state occupied almost entirely by white people and Cuba Gooding, Jr. And speaking of Cuba Gooding, Jr., while he plays a real historical figure, he is onscreen for a mere six or seven minutes and seems to be in the film only so that Disney can advertise his presence in its commercials. Gooding, therefore, portrays not a character but a marketing tool - the final insult in a movie already overflowing with them. 1/10