A Spectacle of Flaws...

Rating: Null/10 (25 May 2001)

SOME MONOR SPOILERS! A two-hour American military disaster expanded into a 3 hour and 3 minutes spectacle of Hollywood flaws! Totally a popcorn flick version of history! Yep, the half hour of special effects work well to prevent its failure to impress the audience! Filled with massive explosions, triggered with rousing orchestral swells and uncountable extras, it pumps up an enormous "Hollywood" war, bombarding the viewers with loads of clichés and macho pomposities! Dramatic, no doubt; spectacular, for sure; and ghoulish, as expected... and everything's overtly commercialized! Hey, it's a gigantic extravaganza to inflict the viewers' patriotic minds with visually compelling and unforgettable images. OK, it's entertainingly traumatizing,.. just like Star Wars' enchantment! Planes plummeting through the air and swooping between buildings; planes heading for the USS Arizona (blood-curling just to see its stock of torpedoes, bombs, and explosives!), Japanese bombs wreaking havoc, five battleships demolished, flames engulfing the harbor, thousands of men and women fighting for their lives, and salvage crews lifting the ship's gun turret to find bodies after bodies... a bunch of visual veracities garnished with an unimpressive and corny love-triangle yarn (marketing blitz, perhaps) that whops up a great deal of cheesy dialogue! A love story clearly without resonance and emotional pull! And the presence of undeveloped historical characters dabbed onto scenes to induce some historical credibility! Utterly a lame storyline with events flip-flopping between cinematic bliss and the writer's undeniably enthusiastic execution of romantic hoopla! Pardon me! If this film intends to show that America has lost its innocence with Pearl Harbor, it has failed miserably! And whoa, no Hawaiians and Asian Americans serving at Pearl Harbor, or even walking the streets? For the special effects, it's entertaining; for those familiar with it's history, it's a package wrapped up with Hollywood frills!