Avoid this movie if you have any brain matter left from seeing "Titanic".

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2001)

If you want romance and action, this movie is for you. I mean everyone has their outlet for mindless escapism.
Now, on for the review of what a mindless trite piece of $197,000,000 junk this movie really is.
This movie sucks. Go see it if you were thinking about Tora Tora Tora while watching Titanic. One big stupid and trite romance wrapped in a battle.. hmm.. I think it was Pearl Harbor. We're reminded of that every now and then, especially the armada of CGI battle sequences unleashed in between the romance parts.
The acting conveys a sense of "let's go back to the overacting '40s where everything anybody says is stupidly profound or sappy". Even back then though, people fell in love and there were good reasons. There isn't even any depth to their love in this movie save for some dumb romantic physical comedy. SPOILER ALERT Then the movie goes full-force into the battle, and combines it with lots of special effects that hilight impossible events. Like when they play "chicken" with the Japanese pilots and cause four of them to crash into each other... yeah, I'm sure that happened since their pilots didn't dominate almost every battle they were in for 15 years before Pearl Harbor due to their experienced and veteran pilots, right?... hint, I'm being sarcastic). Think about it... the Japanese lost 29 aircraft... 15 of which weren't anywhere near where those two Americans that actually, in reality, did get off the ground. So that means we have to believe that these two guys (one of them with no combat experience) downed 7 planes by themselves. heh. Anyway, maybe I'm being picky. But this is just one example.
Also, it is chock-full of classic cliche scenes (you know, those scenes where they do something in the movie that has been done time and time again to the point where you roll your eyes) like the following:
1. The "Life Gasp" where someone who's underwater finally reaches the surface of the water and a slo-mo shot catches them as they crash out of the water with a loud guttural intake of life-sustaining oxygen. Don't forget, it's gotta be a night-shot, even though you were shot down during the day.
2. The "David vs. Goliath" where the ship's cook who's NEVER shot a gun before mounts a .50 caliber turret and blows up a Japanese plane coming straight at him.
3. The "So Close Yet So Far Away", this is a modification of the "Train Miss" where she chases after the train so that they can exchange vows of love, and also extend their gaze for a little longer until they are parted and he goes off to war. In this modification, the couple don't actually meet. And the one in the train can't open the window to let the other one who's just outside the window know that "I'm right here! Look up... don't look that way, just look up at me! I'm here dammit! Oh, damn, the train is leaving! Oh... so close... yet....". OK I think I made my point.
4. The "Hey, Don't Worry, This Bomb Is A Dud!.... KABLAMM" I presume that you all know what this one means.
5. The "We Are Enemy, In Other Words We Are Robots" where, once again, the enemy is portrayed as a mindless uberlord-obeying personality-less group. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was bigoted or racist, but there is this undertone that is very reminiscent of the WWII epics of the '50s and '60s. There is virtualy NO human-side to any of the Japanese characters.
6. "Our Flags Unfurled..." where the US flag is shown torn/tattered/floating away in some symbolic way to show, in a "deep" way of course, how we've been brutally violated.
Ultimately, this movie will probably make hundreds of millions of dollars. I hope Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay can find the time to thank all those that died in WWII to make their movie a success.
The worst thing about it was that there were actually some good things in the movie, some real touching moments and some real emotion. But if you edit out all the junk, you have a 45 minute A&E or History Channel special.
Jeff (seriously, watch Tora Tora Tora... at least that movie focused on something important)