Special Effects: A+ rest of the movie: D-

Rating: 3/10 (27 May 2001)

A technical marvel of a movie, the actual scenes of the attack were beautifully rendered (as we might expect from a major summer blockbuster). Like just about every film of its ilk, the filmmakers seem to have blown the entire budget on major stars and effects, with little thought about characters or dialogue.
As in Titanic, we are introduced to several fictional characters and are expected to care enough about them to become involved in the movie. The exposition is weak however, as is the dialogue. As a result, the lead-up to the actual attack is nothing more than counting the number of "famous last words" lines: "Pearl Harbor? That's about as far from the war as you can get!"; "We feel that Pearl is the least likely spot for an attack."; etc.
The main plot line, a love triangle between Rafe, Danny and Evelyn, is weakly set up. Danny's character is pretty weakly defined and the story arc is so predictable it is laughable.
Donal Logue's South Carolinian redneck backwoodsman character in The Patriot, after fighting alongside a freed slave for most of a year, tells the man before battle "I'm honored to serve alongside you. Honored." It was all I could do to not laugh aloud in the theatre. This movie has a number of lines like this one -- Alec Baldwin's Jimmy Doolittle has to deliver several of them, making me wonder how many takes it took him to deliver his speeches with a straight face.