From Here To Stupidity

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2006)

First, the errata: Dorie Miller wouldn't have been flirting with Evelyn.
Dorie Miller died on a ship a few years after the attack and received his medal posthumously. He did, however, fire the 50-cal and it is believed he shot down one or two planes. His captain also survived in real life.
Oh yeah, people smoked. A lot. They also played poker.
No nurses died in the attack.
The Doolittle raid was tidied up for Hollywood.
While factual, I still do not believe that Jon Voight could ever have sired Angelina Jolie, but give the man props for his creation. His acting? He said it best in the movie, after the attack: "How bad?" It is true that America scrambled a few fighter jets and shot down a few Japanese planes. This may have been one of the reasons that the third wave was called off (Japan suffered 29 casualties).
The plot? The first half is "From Here To Eternity" while the second is Tora Tora Tora. The action scenes of the attack, which run a full twenty minutes, save the film. You really get a feel for what it was like to be bombed like that. Where the film almost, but not quite, perishes, is how it attempts to insert a chick-flick into a war movie. The result is what I imagine it would taste like to mix milk and orange juice, two things which are fine on their own but not pleasant when combined.
The movie's other main strength was in its portrayal of the Japanese as an honorable nation that felt it had to conduct this war to preserve its place in the world. We have certainly done this ourselves, and the film also captured the sense of total victory experienced by the Japanese pilots, many of whom are now interviewed for documentaries on the war. One cannot help but respect the efficiency of the attack, including how the Japanese altered their torpedoes so they could navigate the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. Without question, we got our tails kicked good, and from a military standpoint, it was one of the most lopsided battles of all time.
The movie chose to end with the Doolittle raid, but it would have been smarter to give minor screen time to that attack, and more to the role it played in our winning the Battle of Midway, which was the true turning point of the war. That battle was won by mere seconds, as our bombers beat the refueling Japanese bombers to the attack by a whisker.
The film is a good way to show a historical event to a young audience that can smooth out the inaccuracies in the history books or on the internet. The cast could have been stronger, but Affleck (Rafe), Hartnett (Danny), and Beckinsale (Evelyn) do not drop the ball while carrying the film. Jennifer Garner as the mousy Sandra was an interesting performance, especially in light of her future stardom. Dan Akroyd as the decoder was convincing as only he can be. It was good to see an SNL alum play his role well in such a big-budget feature.
Watch it on cable if you're an adult, and keep the DVD around for the children for when they have a history bug. At 3:20, they'll be occupied all evening.