Pearl Harbor: torpedoed by cliches.

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2001)

It's official: Michael Bay has terminal directorial ADD. I have to say that the reason why we are seeing this film in the first place is one of the most brilliantly orchestrated action sequences in the history of film. No one ever said Bay can't blow up things in a virtuoso way, and the 35 minute Pearl Harbor bombing segment is a jaw dropper. If only Randall Wallace's cliche ridden script had been equally explosive. You get the feeling that Bay wants to earn respectability, that he wants to slow down his hyper kinetic tempo to make a film with texture. Unfortunately, he can't help himself, instead relying on a Norman Rockwell storyline of an America that never existed outside of a middle school textbook. Is there any cliche left unturned here? The two guys in love with the same girl? The gee shucks "come back for the both of us" dialogue? The shots in the butt infirmary scene? Nurses and GIs thrown together in the cauldron of war? A few cryptic, rushed along scenes of inscrutably stoic Japanese officers, frenetic US politicians, military advisors, and a determined FDR all changing world history in Michael Bay's patented emotional shorthand??????? Of course, none of this movie lover's two cents is going to prevent making Jerry Bruckheimer an even richer man or Michael Bay from ignoring the blistering reviews that have already torpedoed this movie. Nuff said.