Pearl Harbor the music video by Michael Bay

Rating: 1/10 (7 January 2002)

It is fashionable to say, when critiqueing this movie, the attack on Pearl Harbor is great, but the rest of the movie is just awful. I want to state plainly and for what ever record there maybe that it is not the case. In fact it is all awful, every excruciatingly painful minute. I will briefly only comment on the attack as other awful aspects have been covered by other reviewers (Roger Ebert's wonderful line, "Pearl Harbor is a two hour movie crammed into three." should give one an idea about the rest of the film). In fact I will talk only about one scene in the battle. It is designed (this ugly scene) to drive us to tears, but all it should do is offend, offend and offend! The scene depicts several sailors treading water (we are looking at them from under wonderfully tinted soft sea green), the sailors are fighting valiantly to stay afloat. Behind them under the water, is an American flagg. And underneath the entire scene is one of the most annoying soundtracks ever created. In less than 5 seconds director Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckhimer have taken one of the most tragic events in U.S. history and turned it into a music video. And a boring, predictible, and unispired one at that.