This film isn't about dropping bombs. It is a bomb!!!

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2002)

Pearl Harbor is not a good movie. In fact, it's not a movie at all - it's punishment. Any film critic telling you otherwise is like George W. Bush on Jeopardy - useless.
Director Michael Bay is the same genius responsible for Armageddon. That opus concerns a group of wacky oil drillers sent to destroy an asteroid on a crash course with earth. So horrible, it makes you root for the asteroid.
Bay is the crown (clown?) prince of audience manipulation. It takes discipline and skill to create characters and scenes that honestly demand the viewer's attention. Instead of making an effort, Bay cheats . . .

Slow motion shots of pilots strutting along. Gee, Mr. Bay how original. I haven't seen anything that spectacular since your last movie. Newsflash: screen heroes are not heroic just because they're moving at more frames per second.

When in need of comic relief, bring on the guy with the speech impediment. Are you kidding, Mr. Bay? You want me to point and laugh at a man with a stuttering problem? A character with a handicap can be funny. Well, duh. However, when the chuckles are at the inflicted's expense, it's more sad than humorous.

Mr. Bay, you are shameless. Can't generate suspense? Quick, put a doggie in a life or death situation. Can't elicit an emotional response through straightforward storytelling? Give us a scene with children.

Michael Bay is a hack . . .
Pearl Harbor is a long film. I'm not sure about the running time, but I think it is in the neighborhood of 9 hours. It's such a lengthy movie, the makers of Pearl Harbor lose track of plot points along the way.
Early on, Ben Affleck's character has severe dyslexia. After 4 hours, this trait conveniently disappears. Why? While stationed in Europe, this flyboy becomes quite the poet. The letters he writes to Naval nurse girlfriend, Kate Beckinsale, are impressive. However, the long-winded sonnets are a contrived mechanism for forcing the bulk of the story upon unsuspecting filmgoers.
Pearl Harbor is largely a love story - filled with unappealing people, uttering romantic drivel, doing stupid things. Since there is no investment in the live's of these characters prior to the fighting, it really doesn't matter what happens to them during the fighting.
Oh yeah, the movie contains the Japanese attack on the titular naval base. Those moments are technically well made. Stuff goes boom. People run around and yell. The proceedings are slick and presented with ostensibly lofty production sensibilities. Still, the sneak attack is cold.
It doesn't help that at times Bay shoots the action in a hazy, soft focus. Maybe he was trying to be artistic. It doesn't quite work as intended. Like I said, Bay is a hack.
One last point: Why can't Hollywood have the courage to end a movie appropriately? The film is called Pearl Harbor. However, the Japanese aerial attack left thousands of Americans dead or wounded and the Pacific fleet in ruin . . . What a downer. The good guys have to win, right?
Well, in this movie they do. The victory takes the form of the Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle-led retaliation strike against Tokyo. Everyone can leave the theater happy. All is well.
Bad enough, right? Get this: the U.S. bombing raid took place only 131 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pilots launched from the flight deck of the USS Hornet. Upon dropping their payloads on Japan, the twin-engine Mitchell bombers continued to mainland China - then occupied by Japan. From there, these men alluded the enemy and marched to Allied territory.
In Pearl Harbor, all this is a means to wrap up the hackneyed love yarn. Who gets the girl - the intrepid Affleck or the daring Josh Hartnett? Who cares?
Don't get guilted into enjoying this clunker. Pearl Harbor is junk . . . If you agree, does that mean you don't revere the past? No - it simply says that you have taste.
This film is a three out of ten.