A three hour yawn

Rating: 3/10 (6 July 2001)

The fact that *anybody* can find this movie even mildly entertaining totally escapes me. I had a fairly open mind when I went to see it, although I did expect a sickening display of American patriotism. And I did of course get that in bucketloads. That's not the problem though. The problem is simply put: this film is the worst film I've ever paid money to see (well, I'll make an exception for Dungeons & Dragons).
For the first two hours I couldn't help moaning, groaning and looking at everything BUT what was happening on the screen. The only things that were mildly amusing were the HORRENDOUS dialogue, and the almost equally bad acting. This film shattered all my illusions of Ben Affleck as a decent actor. However, I saw 'Chasing Amy' just a couple of days ago (an EXCELLENT film by the way), and he does a really good role there. This leads me to the conclusion that it's not the actors' abilities that are lacking in this film - it's just that the film is so badly written - so flat and boring - that they don't have anything to play with (like the horrendous performance award winning Jeremy Irons does in Dungeons & Dragons). Not even Anthony Hopkins would've looked good in Pearl Harbor. And God knows what on earth Cuba Gooding Jr. is doing in there. I suspect only to include the mandatory even-black-people-can-be-good-people-bit all Hollywood films have these days (we know this Hollywood - stop being so insecure).
I simply cannot believe that the script in this film was written by the same person that wrote the script for Braveheart (Randall Wallace). Although Braveheart has elements of sentimentality, I love that film. I think the commercial forces of Hollywood pulled Wallace's writing abilities down in cliche Hell. Talking about cliches - I won't even try to put you through the misery of telling you about the pathetic love story. It's the most horribly cliched I've ever seen.
A problem with the film is also how totally one-dimensional and barbaric the Japanese are portrayed. I find the scene in which the Japanese plan the attack on Pearl Harbor almost shocking. They stand around a pond with some guy standing in the middle of it pointing at little models of warships with a wooden stick. "This is how we're gonna attack". This brings up the question: Do the Americans think that they are the only country in the world with military installations? And of course, the Japanese admiral in charge of the attack fleet that is actually portrayed as a somewhat sympathethic, is only in there for the purpose of delivering this line "I fear we have woken a sleeping giant". An American audience will of course appreciate this a lot more when it's coming from a semi-nice guy. Everybody knows the US armed forces are the most powerful in the world. So where does all this insecurity that calls for the rubbing of the military ego at every turn come from?
And whereas the Pearl Harbor attack shows a lot of suffering on the American's behalf, the attack towards the end of the film on Tokyo where apparently the Japanese casualties were ten times higher than the American's at Pearl Harbor, doesn't show ANY Japanese people being blown to bits. What's going on here? Is it so hard to accept that America has inflicted a lot of pain on the people of the world? Do they have to HIDE the fact that they are killing people as well just to make themselves look even more heroic?
I will of course admit that the effects are spectacular, but the attack itself is fabulously unexciting because of your state of mind at that point in the film. If the attack was put into the film one and a half hour earlier, it would be spectacular entertainment (the aerial combat over Britain is pretty good just because it's so early in the film the story hasn't gotten to you yet), but you're just not ready for it when you've been bored out of your mind for two hours. Also the last fourty-five minutes (raid over Japan) are pretty interesting, but it's just too late.
This film could've been good if only it focused on what the title suggests it's about instead of the most pathetic excuse for a love story you're ever likely to see. Not even the music is decent.
However, I'll give it 3 out of 10 simply because it has very good effects and some pretty nice scenic (albeit very cliched) photography at times.
As a last comment, I remember how the audience in the movie theatre reacted with standing ovations when the White House was blown to pieces in ID4. Hollywood is actually making the rest of the world loathe the American mentality. They should start rethinking their strategy before it's too late