Emotionally Hollow and Insulting

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2001)

Over the past couple of years, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay have proven themselves to be extremely adept at creating `popcorn movies' - good, solid action films that probably aren't going to win any Oscars, but are undeniably entertaining. The secret to making these sorts of films (`The Rock', `Armageddon') seems to be to hype up the action and to not take things terribly seriously. Unfortunately, Bruckheimer and Bay took the same cavalier attitude in making `Pearl Harbor', a film whose very subject matter demands a certain amount of respect. By its very nature, `Pearl Harbor' should've been a film that made the audience ponder the absolute senseless horror of war . . . instead, it's a popcorn movie. The fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor is treated with so little respect is not only disappointing, it's downright insulting. SPOILERS ALERT Like `Titanic', the film `Pearl Harbor' uses a romance between fictional characters to help tell a true story. Not a bad idea, except the romance in `Pearl Harbor' is so wooden and forced, watching it is like having a salad fork stuck in your eye. (For those of you who thought the romance in `Titanic' was bad . . . heh, heh, wait 'til you see `Pearl Harbor'!) The film starts with two childhood friends from Tennessee named Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett). After the obligatory opening childhood sequence to demonstrate how tight these two guys really are, we get to see them enter the Army Air Corps and both fall in love - gee, who could've seen this coming? - with the same pretty young nurse, Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale). Evelyn first chooses Rafe as her love interest, but when he's reported dead, Danny gets his chance. The reports of Rafe's death turn out to be greatly exaggerated, and he of course returns to find Evelyn . . . in Pearl Harbor, mere hours before the start of the bombing.

Forgetting the actual bombing for a second, the romance is so witless it's funny. I kept expecting to see Crow and Tom Servo from MST3K pop in the corner of the movie screen. Lines like "I'm gonna give Danny my whole heart, but I don't think I'll ever look at another sunset without thinking of you" scream Tori Spelling TV-Movie-Of-The-Week . . . the fact that they're in a big-budget movie like this is hysterical. The problem is, the romance is so uninteresting that it's impossible to care about either Rafe, Danny, or Evelyn - so when the bombs start falling on Pearl Harbor, their fate really doesn't matter. This lack of emotional investment in any of these characters turns large sections of the film into something that can only be watched with clinical detachment instead of with genuine feeling, and the fact that it doesn't really matter if the main characters live or die makes the movie, very, very boring. As Rafe, Ben Affleck continues to demonstrate that he's little more than a good-looking store mannequin. Kate Beckinsale, who's normally quite a good actress, puts in an equally wooden performance as Evelyn, as does Josh Hartnett as Danny. Considering that these three are the leads of the film, that's just pathetic.
As for the bombing of Pearl Harbor itself - well, even if you're willing to ignore the many historical inaccuracies, the bombing is handled with such inept direction that it's embarrassing. Despite the fact that it technically looks very good, it's constructed in a manner that suggests adolescent glee, not somber reality. The battle scenes of `Saving Private Ryan' were designed to evoke horror. The sinking scenes in `Titanic' managed to evoke similar feelings of dread. In `Pearl Harbor', there's nothing but cartoonish violence. There's an attitude of `look how cool this is!' throughout the bombing that's completely inappropriate. For example, during the destruction of the USS Arizona in the film, Michael Bay cuts to the reaction of a cook as a bomb strikes the ship . . . the cook gives a Buckwheat-esque reaction that belongs in a `Three Stooges' short. When I saw this in the theater, the audience, for the most part, laughed heartily at the cook's reaction. I'll only pose this question: Should anything at all about the destruction of the USS Arizona, where thousands died in senseless slaughter, be something to laugh at? The actual bombing of Pearl Harbor seems to be little more to Bruckheimer and Bay than an excuse to make an action movie and to blow things up. They rarely give the actual bombing - and its survivors - the respect they deserve, and their few attempts to actually do so are heavy-handed and pandering in nature. In another director's hands, the story still would've been awful, but at least the tone of the film might've been on the mark. Hopefully, Bay will never get another change to butcher a serious subject like this again, and will stick to stuff like `The Rock' from now on.
Are there positives in this film? There's some, I guess, but not enough to make `Peal Harbor' good. Despite Michael Bay's mishandling of the tone of battle sequences, they are technically brilliant, and the effects work is outstanding. (However, I get the feeling Bay should be paying out some cash to James Cameron, Terrence Malick, and Steven Spielberg for so shamelessly ripping shots from their films. Bay is apparently turning into a new version of Brian DePalma - a technically brilliant director with no style of his own.) Cuba Gooding Jr's performance as Dorie Miller is great . . . for the ten minutes he's actually in the movie. It's nice, but he either needed to be a more significant character or cut from the film entirely. Ditto the smaller roles of model James King as Nurse Betty, and Dan Ackroyd as Thurman - they're excellent, but underused. Even though their performances are great, the overall film might've been better if losing the scenes using their characters meant trimming an hour off this already bloated film. The only small role that was both outstanding and critical to the film was Jon Voight as FDR - he was inspiring to watch, and was one of the few important characters who didn't seem to be sleepwalking through the film.

If `Pearl Harbor' was a film about a completely fictional subject - like `Armageddon' - it would still be incredibly dull and mediocre, bordering on bad. The fact that it deals with an important historical event brimming with true stories of heroism and tragedy makes the film `Pearl Harbor' even worse. It's an insulting film that's not worth renting, let alone watching in the theater. Grade: C-