Before he ruined Transformers, Michael Bay tried to re-write history

Rating: 2/10 (18 March 2015)

The visuals were amazing, but the film unfortunately sucked. We were all expecting this grand tale, also seen in Saving Private Ryan or Platoon. However, Michael Bay took one of the most significant moments in American History and one of the most significant moments of the Second World War and turned it into a three hour mess in which the morale of the story was "America-**** Yeah".
My biggest problem with the film is the depiction of the events. When the Japanese attacked, they only attacked soldiers and did not target civilians while when the Americans attacked, they targeted civilians, and in the film it is the opposite. Also, I did not appreciate the Indiana Jones style stunts the pilots pull off, particularly during the attack on Pearl Harbor, I know the film was meant to reach a wider audience, including a younger audience but, WHY? Kids will learn about this stuff in school, I believe that in making the film more family friendly, they did not do the story justice. If you are going to represent a historical event, you must show all sides and not just the romanticized Hollywood version that kids will enjoy, if you want your kids to have a good time, take them to see a Disney film or a Superhero film, not a film depicting an important era in history.
Though I did not find the acting was great, I did not feel that the actors had a great deal to work with from such a lack luster script as well as such hollowed out characters that were just walking clichés, Ben Affleck's character being the "cowboy" etc. And while giving these uninteresting characters the most screen time, the film takes focus away from the event it is meant to be portraying as well as actual real life characters such as Doris Miller or Roosevelt who had more of a right to have had their stories told.
Overall, I am probably being too harsh to this film, but the saving graces are the technical aspects such as the explosions and the angles from the planes are actually quite good. The sad thing is, there is a good film in there somewhere but it was never realized and I hope if Hollywood ever visits this topic again, they will.