This movie is sad.....and I don't mean the story is sad, the whole thing.

Rating: Null/10 (25 May 2001)

Thats right, this is a sad excuse for a movie. I just saw the first show in my city and let me tell you I am embarrassed to be part of my generation. Apparently one of the most important events in world history is not interesting enough for a movie, we need a third rate love story to rope in my fellow 15-20 year old movie goers. This a pathetic attempt to ride the wave of pride stirred up by Saving Private Ryan while at the same time making it dumb enough for 15 year old girls to cry and see 4 times (thats 8 hours of you life wasted, since 2/3 of this movie is doo-doo). The dialougu in this movie is terrible in every sense, I think I laughed at every line Alec Baldwin said. For that matter 90% of the lines I laughed at, the only actors in this movie worth anything are John Voight and Cuba Gooding Jr., both are on screen for a grand total of 20 minutes. The redeeming factor of this movie is the part that is actually about Peral Harbor, about 40 minutes in the middle. It is visually astounding and while not quite as heart wrenching as Saving Private Ryan it does accuratley point out the hopelessness and desperation of the service men and women as they try valiantly survive. Even this is flawed, namely when all historical credibility and emotion goes out the window when our two heroes get in planes and get involved in an action sequence like something out of Independence Day. This made me angry that they ruined what was a very well staged and involving sequence for lame "watch the impossible fireworks and bang-bang" time. Also instead of laying out the raid in a coherent manner the filmakers instead it seems decided to just show parts they though would be "cool", a torpedo here, and explosion there, people dying there. You never get a feeling of whats going on. Another thing that bothered me is how we were suppose to be totally appaled by the Japenese strafing the sailors in the water, it was war and they were active enemies. It is no worse than what we did in Desert Storm when we attacked the fleeing Iraq army. In conclusion the script is laughable, I can't believe the same man that wrote Braveheart penned this. Braveheart wasn't pure history but it was involving and had human edge, it held together and was exciting. The biggest difference is that you didn't realize Braveheart was 3 hours long, I sure realized this was! This is a huge scam, you're basic summer movie crap sandwiched around a truly important and tragic event trying to give it cinematic credibility. The film didn't have to take this low road, Saving Private Ryan didn't budge an inch and made plenty of money, which seems to be all that matters. Apparently $140 million on a 2 hour movie just about Pearl Harbor wasn't as appealing to Hollywood as 40 minutes of Pearl Harbor in a 3 hour movie mostly ripped off from a hundred others.