Sappy love story wrecks this movie!

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2001)

I just saw Pearl Harbor and I have to say that I was extremely disappointed in what I saw! Though I have to admit that the special effects in the battle scene were stunning, it did little to compensate for the great disrespect it gave to the battle at Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor is one of those topics which deserves reverent care when the storyline is drawn up. For example, in the film Saving Private Ryan, all attempts are made to present war and the battle on D-Day in a realistic, true-to-history way without all the flowery Hollywood glamour all-too-often seen in war films. Where the film Pearl Harbor went wrong was when it presented a grave battle in American history as an interruption to a cheesy romance.
I love Ben Affleck and Cuba Gooding Jr. and all the other cameo actors, and under another director, they would have probably given award-winning performances. But it is hard to get past a script laden with cliche lines which make you nausious by the 2 hour mark.
I rated this film as a 3 on the IMDB voting scale. It would have been a 1 if not for the amazing effects during the battle scenes. In my opinion, this movie is a complete waste of time for any real movie lover, and especially for those into war films like myself. This is just another American John Wayne interpretation of history.