It's no gem!

Rating: Null/10 (11 June 2001)

CONTAINS SPOILERS I was already beginning to feel like a shell-shocked veteran about 20 minutes into Pearl Harbor, after essentially nothing had happened. Clocking in at a feels-like-every-minute-of-it 3 hours and 3 minutes long, Pearl Harbor starts off at a leisurely pace and then gets slower as it introduces two kids from farm country dreaming of flying fighter planes. They filch Dad's crop duster, and the dream becomes a real ambition. Flash forward to 1940, and viola!, the two corn-fed flyboys, Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) are student fighter pilots on the same squadron. How lucky is that?
Rafe falls hard in love at first sight with an army nurse, Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), who is coolly pretty, but about as exciting and sexy as a dress form. Before long Rafe volunteers to go out and fight the good fight, leaving his love behind (she seems surprised... she's the only one who didn't see that one coming). When Rafe is lost on a dangerous mission over Britain and presumed dead when his Spitfire plunges into the English Channel, I didn't miss him. But, I knew he'd be back (after all, Affleck's name is above the title). It's completely predictable when Danny, the concerned, grieving boyhood pal, believing his buddy is in a watery grave, takes the despairing Evelyn under his wing... and under the covers. Of course, Rafe does turn up in Hawaii just in the nick of time for the attack on Pearl Harbor. All that kept him alive as he recuperated was the sweet face and true heart of his girl back home, he says (I wonder if he was rubbing his thumb and forefinger together -- playing the world's smallest violin -- as he delivered that corny dialog). When he finds out about the betrayal he's spitting mad at first, but seeing as this is a buddy war flick, Rafe and Danny kiss and make up... Evelyn keeps kissing them both.
Sappy cliches abound as Rockwell-era Americans look helplessly into the bomber-infested heavens above, and a black mess attendant (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), in the midst of the death, destruction and falling debris, cradles his white commander and tells him everything is going to be okay as the higher-up expires in his arms. The good die young here, and the Japanese attackers are little more than cardboard cutouts (the marvelous Mako, who portrays Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is believable but sadly allowed only to be one-dimensional).
Actually, I only have a few minor complaints about Pearl Harbor: the writing, the casting, the cinematography and the direction. Other than that, it's a fine film. Seriously, Michael Bay, whose films I usually enjoy, does not seem to concern himself with the actual directing here: Ben Affleck is playing Ben Affleck; every bit of dialog Josh Harnett has is delivered with fierce, furious intensity for no apparent reason; Cuba Gooding Jr. looks like he'd be much more comfortable doing back-flips and shouting, "Show me the money!" (show us the money, indeed: the attack scenes are cool, but are they worth $180 million?); and Kate Beckinsdale's flavor is about as bland as a tongue-depressor. Alec Baldwin was well-cast as Jimmy Doolittle, but he takes the waving flag, Mom, and apple-pie patriotism thing just a tad too far. If John Voight was directing himself as well, kudos to him: he's the only one who can truly be proud of his Pearl Harbor performance. As President Roosevelt, he practically disappears into the historical character, putting a real, three-dimensional and believable person up there on the screen for us to enjoy.
The cinematography, by John Schwartzman, has its moments (particularly early on, in the train station), but those moments become eternities as he goes back to his shallow, limited bag of tricks again and again: how much steam can there actually be rising off of every paved street? Does he know any other way to shoot a close up that isn't decapitatingly extreme and claustrophobic? Most unforgivable is the footage shot inside the chaotic base hospital, moments after Pearl Harbor is bombed.
Like Grandma's home movies, the camera shakes and shimmies so hard ones fears it might fall apart. Almost as annoying is the inexplicable blurring. This is a feature film, not an amateur docudrama. What does work, and work exceptionally well, is the attack scenes. The Kate dive-bombers soaring, and downward-spiraling birds-eye views of bombs shattering ships are awesome; but Industrial Light & Magic had more to do with that eye candy than Schwartzman did.
When it comes to writing a script based on romance and tragedy, one must be careful to strike a believable balance. James Cameron accomplished that with Titanic. Randall Wallace does not achieve it with Pearl Harbor. Everyone knows what happened at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The film's reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor is spellbinding and edge-of-your-seat exciting (if a bit too long). There is no doubt Bay knows how to convey chaos fraught with fear and flair. It's an awesome visual assault but is it worth sitting through the first hour and a half for what we already know is coming? Unlike Titanic (everyone knew the ship was going to ram that iceberg and people would perish), Pearl Harbor (everyone knows the ships are gonna get bombed and people will perish) doesn't have a love story that compels us to care.

Pearl Harbor is no gem. I want my "I survived Pearl Harbor (the movie)" tee-shirt!