An endless unconvincing love story, dumb history with 20 minutes of the famous "surprise attack," adding the only spark that will wake you after 100 minutes of waiting around for anything to happen

Rating: 1/10 (23 May 2001)

Bad directing, bad acting, and a script written like a course of "history- for- idiots" combined to make this 3 hour mess nearly unwatchable. Filmed like a cereal commercial, with some of the silliest casting imaginable, the love story at the heart of this foolishness, is so predictable and tedious that a good part of the 1400 people at the screening I attended spent most of their time in the lobby buying popcorn and candy to amuse themselves. The unintended laughter from Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsales's romance did little to enliven the proceedings. I have to say that Alec Baldwin, as Col. Doolittle, got most of the laughs, delivering his silly ,peppy, infantile, locker-room "get ready to rumble" speeches to his airmen before the famous "Tokyo Air Raid." The scenes of the Japanese preparing for war are priceless, replete with an outdoor staff meeting, in a series of open air tents, with children flying kites in the background is too silly for further comment. This movie must have cost nearly $200 million, with all the other costs including promotion and advertising this turkey has to cost over $400 million to release. What a waste of time.