The film that may never get the respect it deserves.

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2001)

Pearl Harbor is probably one of the best films to come along so far in 2001. As I looked last night awaiting the early reviews of this long awaited epic film they were exactly what I was expecting so see. The critics bashed Pearl Harbor from beginning to end on just about every level except for its "precise re-enactment" of that fateful December 7th, 1941 attack. Now as I remember about 3 years ago or so a film by the name of Titanic came along, and as I remember suffered the same critical bashing upon its initial release, but as the film gained popularity these moans turned to praise. For nearly a year now we had heard of Pearl Harbor and just like everyone else would be if you had heard of something this far in advance your expectations would be extremely high. Critics bashed Pearl Harbor for its lack of character development and screenplay faults. Now of course you're probably not going to get the quality of a screenplay from a film of this scale and magnitude that the critics want because it's on such a grand scale. To try and focus on only one thing with this kind of summer blockbuster movie would bore the audience to death. Pearl Harbor has just enough of everything to keep the movie flowing nicely, and just when you think that it gets to slow, the attack sequence is presented. The nearly 40 minute attack is quite possibly the most impressive use of digital effects ever seen. It's almost impossible to detect the digital planes from the real ones. You can really see where they spent the money during the attack. And if this film doesn't win some kind of award for cinematography then something is seriously wrong in this country. All in all Pearl Harbor is probably going to be the best film to come out over the summer that is if Planet of the Apes and a few other films turn out to be as good as I hope they are. So I ask you to go in with a non-biased mind and sit through this modern day epic and if you come out of the theater without some kind of feeling of renewed patriotism then something is wrong, GO BACK AND SEE IT AGAIN!!!! AND PLEASE ALL CRITICS DON'T BASH PEARL HARBOR FOR BEING OVER DONE WITH AMERICAN PATRIOTISM BECAUSE THAT'S THE IDEA!!!!! When was the last time that this country did something that we all could be proud of, do you remember?? Didn't think so, this is something that should definitely should be celebrated and embraced for what it is not for what people wanted it to be.