This movie STINKS

Rating: 1/10 (12 July 2001)

Pearl Harbor is garbage, genuine trash, but not the kind of trash that previous Bruckheimer blockbusters like The Rock and Con Air were. They were at least quite fun, but this is just trash as in complete rubbish. Bruckheimer movies are usually passably entertaining, but their non-existent characterisation, terrible dialogue and tacky storylines didn't really become overwhelmingly apparent until you watched them on video, for the movies themselves were so fast that you didn't really notice. With Pearl Harbor you do notice, because Michael Bay, actually believes that he can handle drama, and slows the >pace to fit this drama in. He cannot. Bad Boys and The Rock were fun because they were mostly tongue in cheek and action-based. Armageddon was pitiful because there was a worryingly major amount of sentiment, and all of a sudden you realised that Bay was actually trying to make us care about the characters, which is all very well if you're actually good at that sort of thing, but Bay isn't. (SPOILER ALERT FOR ARMAGEDDON)When Bruce Willis died at the end of Armageddon it was funny! That can't be right. Still, at least that film was ten percent good (the start, any action sequence), but there are literally no redeeming features in Pearl Harbor. The fact that it is historically inaccurate didn't bother me that much, for there were far more obvious flaws apparent to make me care about that.
REASONS WHY PEARL HARBOR STINKS!!!
1. Pearl Harbor is COLD. As in totally dead. There is literally no emotional involvement, except for that of boredom and suicide contemplation. It's characters are so unrealistic and corny that you're hoping the whole film is a parody, but it's not. Are we actually supposed to care what happens to these "people"? Obviously. Why would Bay devote an agonisingly long amount of screen time about their laughably pathetic romance?

2. The script is awful. But it's not even bad enough to be unintentionally funny. It's just boring.
3. The action stinks. Everyone's going on about how good the actual Pearl harbor attack sequence was. It was rubbish! The shot following the missile was so ridiculous that it belonged in the hilarious excesses of Con Air, not this nonsense! I felt no fear for the characters under attack because they weren't characters, which made the attack (I heard it was bordering on the terrifying when it happened in real life, just a rumour)completely ineffective. I was so bored with the first hour or so of terrible cinema that this spectacular but completely uninvolving sequence was too little and too, too late.
4. The song at the end. Makes Celine Dion sound incredible.
5. The overworked camera movements. Notice how the camera moves for no reason in all Bruckheimer travesties. It doesn't add ANYTHING. Bay's just desperately trying to look cool. He fails.
6. Too long. Top Gun is the best Bruckheimer film becasue it's under two hours long and doesn't outstay its welcome. Top Gun is still rubbish, but at least it isn't boring. Pearl harbor is THREE hours long. Every 180 minutes a total waste of my time.
All in all, Pearl Harbor is the worst blockbuster i have ever seen along with Wild Wild West. The thing is is that i have actually contributed money towards this terrible film and I am, in the filmmakers' eyes, no different from someone who paid the same amount of money as me to see it yet enjoyed it. I am therefore no longer seeing rubbish blockbuster films simply for the sake that they are the biggest films of the year. You see other films this year like Almost Famous, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and realise that films can be good, and that's a relief, for I become very cynical with the state of current cinema after watching this. What has happened to blockbusters? They were always just entertainment (with the Indiana Jones films and Ghostbusters being golden examples), but now they're not even entertaining. I was never expecting Pearl Harbor to be profound, or a masterpiece. All i wanted was to be entertained yet not insulted for a couple of hours (or if you insist, THREE hours). You did not entertain. You definitely did INSULT. Of all the blockbusters coming soon, i will only watch AI and Planet of the Apes because they have good directors behind them who can make entertainment. As for Tomb Raider and Jurassic Park III, not a chance. They won't be as bad as Pearl Harbor, but they'll come close.