Watch only the battle scene. Really. I'm not kidding.

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2002)

The majority of Pearl Harbor is a historically inaccurate, overblown, cliche-ridden piece of trash. Michael Bay should be banned from directing for all eternity; Randall Wallace should be tied up in a dungeon and forced to watch this movie over and over, listening to his own lines until he goes insane; and whoever greenlighted the script should get a CAT scan and a sanity hearing. The writing makes James Cameron's Titanic script look like a cinematic masterpiece. The love triangle which takes up the first two hours is trite, flat, predictable, and completely without chemistry. Approximately five minutes is devoted to the war which is supposedly the focus of the movie.
All of the above is why I was quite surprised that the battle scene was as effective as it was. Unlike the rest of the movie, it is affecting and has a ring of truth to it (probably because nobody was talking). If you rent this, get the DVD so you can just skip right to the attack scene and avoid the rest. You'll save yourself two and a half hours of your life and a cast of characters, fictional and historical, who insult integrity, history, intelligence, and the otherwise talented cast of actors who portray them.