Explodes off the screen!

Rating: 9/10 (25 May 2001)

All right, I'll admit the critics had a point about the needlessly long build-up to the attack on Pearl, and the love story was a bit dull at times, BUT... it was worth it just to experience the emotion of watching Pearl Harbor go up in flames for the second time in history. This would have been a perfect movie if the pre-attack bit was about half as long; 45 minutes. At 1 1/2 hours I found myself looking at my watch frequently waiting for the bombs to drop. Once they started dropping though the fastest 50 minutes of my life zipped by, and at the end of it all you feel like one or two of the bombs landed next to you. This wasn't a movie everyone got up and clapped at the end of; you couldn't. The only thing you could do was sit there in stunned silence while your emotions settled again. This is a movie that had to wait until 60 years after the event to be made; any sooner and we may well have gotten caught up in the emotions and run over to drop another bomb on Japan.