An insult to the veterans

Rating: 1/10 (24 June 2002)

This film was not just a sappy love story which used a handful of battle scenes to promote itself as a war movie, it was also an insult to those who actually fought in the battle and a wasted opportunity to teach their grandchildren about a turning point in our history. 80% of the film involves a predictable love triangle set as a period piece, the remaining 20% consists of a dumbed-down history lesson and implausible action sequences. Some have commented that the battle scenes were good, I totally disagree. The dogfights look like something from a science fiction film and a number of ridiculous inaccuracies ruin the film for anyone who knows a thing about the battle or the weapons of the era. For example they have our Hero (Ben Afflek) dodging and outrunning swarms of zeros in a P-40 Warhawk. Although the Warhawk was used effectively against Zeroes in Burma it could neither outturn nor outrun the Zero. The resulting dogfight looks more like Star Wars than real air combat.