Worth seeing but could have been a lot better.

Rating: 7/10 (2 June 2001)

"Pearl Harbor" is worth seeing, no matter what you may have heard. There is a love story which takes up a major portion of beginning of the film but there is enough history in it to keep your interest.
The historical details of the film are good for the most part, however there are some major problems here and there. The first one I noticed was the uniforms of the U.S. This uniform used for this film was wrong. There had been some changes to it in the late 1930's when the army air corp was beginning its transition to becoming the USAF in the late 40's. The second major problem was the ability of Ben Affleck's character of Rafe, being able to go to England and fight in the RAF's Eagle squadron as an activity duty U.S. officer in 1940. This could not happen as the U.S. and nearly 50 other countries had signed a neutrality treaty before World War I. This practice was strictly prohibited. The third significant problem was the character of Admiral Kimmal of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He was not concerned with the Pearl being attacked and in fact, NO ONE was concerned at all. At that time in history, it was considered far too difficult to take two carrier groups over 4000 nautical miles and hit Pearl. The fourth major problem was the character of Jappannese Admiral Yammamoto. He was portrayed as just a leader and almost seemed an after thought. In fact, he was the most brilliant stratagist and one of the best leaders the Japannese had. His planning of his attack on Pearl was painstakingly detailed and planned. There were also some minor problem, but ones that could not have been avoided, such as the visible features on the Japannese carriers that are only seen on our Nimitz Class carriers.
The biggiest problem I had with the film was the love story. They spent way too much time on it and it detracted, severely from the story of Pearl Harbor. They should have cut nearly 45 minutes of the love story and concentrated more on the planning of the attack on Pearl and Dolittle's raid on Japan. This would have made the film much better and would have given more feeling and/or meaning to the film. It appeared to me that Bay and company failed to realize that Pearl Harbor really "means" something to Americans, especially to the Vets.
Overall, worth your while (7 out of 10).