Beyond awful

Rating: Null/10 (25 June 2001)

Every summer, we expect one of the awaited blockbusters to be a turkey. Be it The Avengers of M:I-2, it helps maintain the balance. However, with Pearl Harbor something has gone seriously wrong.
The opening sequences are a reasonably engaging mix of humour and romance, but it soon becomes clear that director Bay is quite content with the sheer shallowness of his leading characters to build his action framework over them. Big mistake. The total lack of sympathy that Affleck, Beckinsale and Hartnett evoke means that you really don't care if any of them get blown to bits.
These are all reasonably standard summer blockbuster mistakes. In the characterisation department it always appears that the scriptwriter has been out making the tea. But what really grates is its sheer, irritating patriotism. The Americans are seen as a saintly race who it seems were attacked totally out of the blue by the Japanese, who according to the film are just plain evil. Every time we see them, the sinister movie pipes up and we see them rubbing their hands together with glee as they plot the attack. It is truly insulting. The rest of the film is unceasing flag-waving and propaganda, with the basic message that the war was won solely because of the Americans. And that whole, trivial Nuclear Holocaust thingy is not-so subtly deleted from the narrative, in order to ensure that the Americans come out looking like the good guys and the sole saviours of the free world. It is quite frankly laughable.
The effects are the thing, of course, and for a moment you actually believe that you haven't wasted your ticket fare. But even that becomes very samey after a while and you realise that you have been sat there for one and a half hours, your left buttock is about to drop off, and you're still only halfway through.