Not exactly Braveheart, but worth seeing for what it is

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2001)

It is hard to imagine how the writer of Braveheart could have produced another film that is also a love story set against a dramatic background, but done it with such a lack of emotional substance. Not that Pearl Harbor is bad, it's a great action movie... but that's pretty much all it is. There are some (isolated) good dramatic moments, some jaw dropping shots, and unbelievable action. Overall, it should have been a two hour action movie, not a three hour "love story" (if you can call it that.) If you are expecting the drama of Braveheart, or the love story of Titanic (which this film steals horribly and blatantly from, by the way), or the inspiration of Shawshank, you will be disappointed. The sound editing is incredible (expect an Oscar), and so are the special effects, most of which you can't even tell are special effects, since they look so good. Overall, if you like movies, especially action movies, go see it, and it's probably not going to be a life changing experience, but it'll be worth the 8 or 9 bucks.
P.S.-----very mild spoiler alert:When Alec Baldwin's character was talking about how rather than be captured he would fly his plane into a Japanese target and "try and kill as many Japs as he could" or something like that, the whole audience started applauding like crazy....Japanese-Americans are worried about what this film will do to their image, and first I was like "people will protest about anything", but after seeing the film, it is true that there is some pretty strong anti-Japanese scenes. Scenes like the one above probably weren't necessary. But I gave it a 7 out of 10 because overall its a pretty good action flick.