Cliche-laden with great FX

Rating: 3/10 (6 June 2001)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***
Here is first production meeting for Pearl Harbor:
Jerry Bruckheimer: "We are going to pack every tired, hackneyed war movie cliche known to hollywood into a single movie. Into the middle of that we will inject $139 million worth of Industrial Light and Magic wizardry."
Everyone Else: "OK boss, lets go!"
Don't pay full price for this movie. Go to a discount matinee and wait for the first hour to elapse before entering. This will save you from having to suffer through Ben Affleck's "acting" and lack of chemistry with his leading lady. You also get to miss Ben's plane going down in the English Channel, out of control at 200 miles an hour, and guess how injured our hero is as a result of this crash? The makers of this movie either believe we are so stupid as to believe Ben (the star) is dead (1 hour into a 3 hour movie) or that we are so stupid as to not notice that NOBODY could have survived that crash. And since nobody in the audience thinks he is dead, there is no payoff when he "comes back from the dead" to his grieving love. Just more closeups of Ben "emoting". However, the FX were great but not ground breaking. ILM earns their money but doesn't pull out all the stops.