Big names, big special effects, a made for cable TV storyline (and we're not talking Sopranos quality).

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2001)

Living in Hawaii all my life and having worked on base at Pearl Harbor, I've probably heard more hype about this movie than most. I heard things like, "It's going to be the next Titanic." I saw the movie on opening night, and it's far from being a Titanic or Gladiator. The movie was somewhat slow and lacked depth. I wondered how they would work a good love story into something like the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the answer is that it isn't a very good love story. I didn't get the feeling that the characters were really in love, other than they told each other they were. In lust, possibly. The notion of a love triangle to begin with was a bad idea. It's not something very romantic and not bound to make many girls weepy eyed. The attack on Pearl Harbor was visually impressive, but didn't draw much emotion in the way Titanic did because you didn't really care about the characters. The movie also had less than I thought it would about Pearl Harbor, for a movie entitled, "Pearl Harbor." All in all, I would say the movie was just okay. It's worth seeing in the theaters for the special effects, but other than that, I'd say it's one to wait for the home video release. It would've been better if it was shorter and less drawn out, the characters had more depth, and the story surrounding the two best friends as being superhero ace fighter pilots wasn't so cheesy. At times I felt like Bruckheimer and Bay were trying to do a remake of Armageddon.