Great Movie!

Rating: Null/10 (16 June 2001)

Those of you expecting an overlong epic with lots of talk and little action are in for a big surprise. The critics hated it, lots of comments here have bagged it out severly, but I'm not sure why. I guess if you hate Ben Aflick then sure - You're not gonna like the movie at all. This movie IS Ben Affleck. There sure was a lot more here than seeing Pearl go down. We have a cross to the Battle of Britain, then the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Honestly, it didn't seem like three hours at all. The hardest thing when you leave the cinema is trying to figure out why Japan did this in the first place. They had their oil cut off, and pretty well everything else from the U.S. but this did nothing to restore those trade links. The idea of a defensive ring doesn't hold much water. Even if they had taken out the carrier force, the U.S. would have gotten by with a couple from Atlantic Fleet until 1943 when new carriers were completed. The U.S. only committed 20% of their effect to the Pacific from the start - meaning they knew on 12/7/41 that Japan were going down. Oh, and I'd love to see the Box Office stats for this movie in Japan. Do you think anyone will bother seeing their grandparents commit the biggest screw up in history?