Bad history, bad movie-making

Rating: 2/10 (15 January 2007)

With a big-budget "epic" like this one, where to begin? First is the excruciatingly long running-time; I was starting to squirm in my seat before the attack on Pearl Harbor even commenced. Next is a ridiculous (and ultimately VERY tedious) love-triangle; I guess the producers thought the only way they could sell "history" to the public was to wrap it around a romance story. Unfortunately for them, the boring romance angle only serves to turn-off action-movie buffs!
But the biggest objection to this film was what it tries to pass-off as history. The same pilot, Ben Affleck, is involved in THREE of the biggest events of WWII -- the Battle of Britian, the Pearl Harbor Raid, and the Doolittle Raid? What's the odds on that happening? 25 million to one??? And SINCE WHEN were hot-shot fighter pilots recruited by Jimmy Doolittle to pilot large B-25 bombers off the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier? Was there anything in the plot that even hinted that Ben and buddy Josh had ever been NEAR a bomber before? As any old combat pilot will tell you, a bomber pilot was one breed, and a fighter pilot a whole other breed. (Also, who thought of casting spoiled little brat Alec Baldwin, of all people, as Colonel Jimmy Doolittle? A laughable decision; I'll stick with Spencer Tracy in "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo"!)
As for the Pearl Harbor raid itself, a few good computer-generated shots of the battleship Oklahoma capsizing do not make up for truly comic-book scenes of our heroes dogfighting Japanese planes. First we're treated to Ben, Josh and their crews shooting down enemy planes from the ground. Next we see Ben & Josh in the air and working with their ground crews over the radio to lead the Japanese into veritable shooting galleries of bullets. I'll bet real 1941-era pilots would of loved to have had the kind of air-ground coordination this movie shows. Next we see our heroic pair dodging in-between hangers, about 10 feet off the ground! Then they wander out over battleship row and fight among the ship's masts. But the biggest "groaner" is when they "play chicken" and lead four Japanese planes to crash with one another! This is truly Hollywood at it's worst. (Oh, and corny dialog like Josh saying over the phone as the first bombs drop, "I think World War Two just started!" Another groaner).
Not only does our dynamic duo almost completely foil the whole Japanese attack with their magnificent flying, but upon landing they show up at girlfriend Kate's hospital to donate blood. As as if that weren't enough, then they volunteer to go out to battleship row and help rescue sailors trapped in the upturned Oklahoma! Whew! Instead of getting a medal, these two should have been nominated for sainthood.
Finally at the end of the picture, when they crash-land in China after the Doolittle Raid, our brave boys single-handedly destroy a whole Japanese platoon. (But, alas, Josh is mortally wounded in the process... sniff sniff.) Oh well, that neatly wraps up the love-triangle!
I remember the howls of anger from veterans when this travesty of a movie came out -- once I saw it I couldn't blame them. Stick with 1970's "Tora Tora Tora" if you want a realistic depiction of that momentous event.