Pearl Harbor- Dishonoring The Dishonorable Past

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2001)

I would like to have a few words with Michael Bay. If you're going to have a love story in a war movie, make it deep and passionate, with acting worth the film it is stored on. The script was awful, with the most unrealistic dialogue ever, save personal injury attorney ads. But despite this hour plus of shallowness, I still watched this movie with an open mind. My mind, however, began forming harsher judgements about this movie as the Japanese appeared more and more. They were represented in the most ridiculous manner, with government meetings in outside teahouses, headband tying rituals for the fighter pilots, and percussion that practically cried "Stormtroopers!" overwhelming their scenes to boot. I was embarrassed for the Japanese to the same extreme that I was embarrassed for the way the Native Americans were represented in Dances With Wolves. Let's be honest, the whole world was scheming during this time. Why make the Japanese out to be barbarians? Yes, what they did to Pearl Harbor was devastatingly awful, but look what we did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We killed how many MILLION? And don't forget that generations today are still recovering from God-knows how many types of cancer those two bombs invoked. But, of course, the only U.S. retaliation pictured in this movie is a mere "pin-prick," as Alec Baldwin puts it. I fear the kind of stereotyped pretense the term "Japanese" will carry in the minds of those under 10 who see this movie.
On a more positive note, it would be hard to overlook the amazing action sequences, and I wonder not how $135 million was spent on this movie. I just wish that the breathtaking views of this attack were in a movie that involved a higher standard of acting and scripting. I walked in with hopes (even, dare I say, expectations!) of seeing another semi-historical movie in ranks with tasteful greats such as JFK, Braveheart, Schindler's List, Apocalypse Now, and Rambo III (just kidding) but walked out feeling like I had seen an action packed v