God bless America and show mercy

Rating: 1/10 (10 July 2002)

I'm an Englishman and I happened to watch Pearl Harbour while visiting friends in Canada. During the film I saw 4 Japanese-looking people walk out (and I didn't notice them return) so make your own mind up about that. I have to say that this film is probably the worst I have ever seen. I would have been laughing throughout if I wasn't offended so much by the portrayal of the RAF as defeatists ("If all Americans are like you, God bless America"!!) and the low expectation of my intelligence. All 4 of us in the cinema were literally doubled-over laughing at the film's unbelievable attempt to draw a happy ending from the real-life events. Where do I start? The president's attempt to get to his feet to give a rousing speech, the predictable love triangle saga (my girlfriend whispered the final line to me 10 minutes before the end) and most astonishing of all; the portrayal of the retaliatory attack on Tokyo as being a success!! A dozen under-fuelled planes barely reach the mainland, yet alone Tokyo, and are gunned-down quite easily. How can this have struck fear into Japanese' hearts?! I caught myself literally mouth agape at such arrogance.
The film is the ideal example of the worst of Hollywood, where x millions are spent on the twisting of real-life events for the affirmation that God indeed blesses America. eg. Independence Day (they must have been so proud to see the president take on the aliens) and U5471 (it was the ENGLISH who cracked the Enigma code. While we are happy to let the Americans take a lot of credit for the war; after all Europe needed them; to take liberties with the known facts is a disgrace to the people involved and just about sums up this film as well)
The bottom line is that I heartily recommend this film! I thought I could overlook every potentially provocative suggestion as an artistic statement but this film changed all that.