Pearl Harbor's technical aspects are astonishing but its plot is lacking.

Rating: 1/10 (28 May 2001)

Pearl Harbor is a film that tries too hard to make too much money by giving us harrowing battles, Hollywood hunks, and a Hollywood romance. It's real focus should be to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Michael Bay's trademark, flashy direction is quite evident here. In many of his shots and sequences it is quite apparent that his borrowing from Titanic and Saving Private Ryan.
Randall Wallace's screenplay is overly clichéd and includes many one-dimensional characters. Many of the lines of dialogue are quite annoying and melodramatic.
The performances are merely mediocre. Ben Affleck needed more expression and emotion both in his speech and facial expressions. Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett give average performances, but when they try to be emotional it's painfully clear that their emotions are forced and fake. Cuba Gooding Jr. overplays his character but his screen time is minimum so he's not as annoying as he would be. Jon Voight is very convincing as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and gives the best performance of the film.
The pacing is both poor and excellent. The beginning of the film is rather slow. There's simply too much there and it bogs the film down. On the other hand, the editing for the battle scenes is appropriately face-paced and riveting.
The CGI work and pyrotechnics of Pearl Harbor are first-rate. The sound effects and sound effects editing are also terrific.
John Schwartzman's cinematography is reasonably good. His use of the `shaky cam' technique is reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan.
Hans Zimmer's melodramatic musical score suits the vast scale of the film nicely.
With a little bit more care placed in the editing, better actors, and a tighter script; Pearl Harbor could have been the gem it was made out to be through its extensive advertising.