spectacular action, mediocre melodrama

Rating: 4/10 (30 May 2001)

When Randall Wallace (Braveheart) was commissioned to write this script, they must have made him sit through at least five screenings of Titanic. They wanted a Titanic success and the best way to do that would be to recreate Titanic. but in a different context. They reviewed Titanic's salient story points:
· A three-hour long movie with. · a glamorous look and evoked a period feel that had... · a love triangle leading up to. · a terrible, massive disaster will occur that the audience knows is coming because this is based on a historic event well-known to American audiences during which time. · Sympathetic main characters (e.g. Dicaprio) are allowed to die.
Then they started casting about for a scenario that could include the love triangle, and have a story in which it was obvious to all what would happen because it was historical fact. When you add in the Bruckheimer/Bay requirements for explosions and bullets whizzing by, the answer has to be a war film, specifically about a famous battle with historical resonance. They settled on the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, a salient event in American history. In addition to providing the requisite characteristics of a well-known story of an epic disaster, the Hawaiian vistas would provide a glamorous backdrop. They turned the screenwriter loose, got a heck of a lot of change out of Disney (even while cutting their own fees to stay in budget), shook well, stirred once or twice, added a Maraschino cherry, and have served it in a massive marketing campaign and over 3,000 screens for its American debut.
The High Points
The Pearl Harbor battle scene is first class spectacle. The battle scene runs 40 minutes, which are almost flawless from a technical standpoint. Mr. Bay has enormous ability at creating exciting carnage, and given a task force of five Japanese aircraft carriers, 300 attacking aircraft, and an entire naval base to destroy, he has done a remarkable job. This is one battle scene meant to be seen on a big screen. If you don't see it in a theater and wait for video, you will be missing some outstanding images. Almost all of the battle scenes, including the earlier ones at the Battle of Britain, are done remarkably well. They might have spent $140 million on this film, but they left all of it on the screen. The scale of the attack is evident and its details are incredibly well done.
The Middling Points
In spite of following of Titanic's formula, the ability to create interesting characters and emotional interest is not something that can be done in an FX studio. Although the actors are not incapable, there is no Oscar-worthy performance here to draw the audience in. Kate Beckinsale is the female love interest, an American nurse who first falls in love with Rafe (Ben Affleck as a square-jawed good ol' boy) and then Danny (Josh Hartnett) after Rafe is (seemingly) killed fighting the Nazis over Britain. She is winsome and pretty, but this is not Kate Hudson. Affleck's Rafe is earnest, but Affleck always seems to be Affleck, just with some different words in his mouth. Hartnett is quiet and sincere, and probably turns in the most grounded performance of the three main characters. None of them are served particularly well by the script, which distances the audience from the characters by putting them in situations where they are in danger of dying of corn poisoning. Cases in point include Affleck's meet-cute with Beckinsale's nurse, where he pretends to be another soldier so he can keep getting shots from her until he keels over, and the scene where Beckinsale regales her boy-crazy nurse colleagues of that particular meeting while the girls are riding a train to New York. It's bad enough watching it once, but then have running commentary from a hen party kind of doubles the displeasure. Rafe's fake death is the catalyst for Beckinsale and Hartnett to come together, and Rafe's sudden unsurprising return on December 6, 1941 in Hawaii causes some poorly done scenes of 'I-thought-you-my-friend' and 'but-we-thought-you-were-dead'. Finally, the Japanese arrive.
The handling of the causes leading up to Pearl Harbor are perfunctory but serviceable. Jon Voigt as Roosevelt is a bit more blustery than the sturdy patrician ever came across in the newsreels. The scenes of the Japanese point-of-view are also a bit short but to the point. This movie isn't about causation, it's about explosion.
The Low Points
Although the movie proves to be middling to poor melodrama and great action spectacle, it doesn't truly run off the rails until after the battle scene at Pearl. In response, Bruckheimer/Bay tacked on a pointless third (fourth?twelfth?extended denouement?) act about the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April, 1942. The Doolittle raid was a propaganda event meant to encourage American morale with virtually no military impact. The main characters even question the value of the raid themselves and never get a good answer. Furthermore, the narrative about the raid itself is never established as being important - the movie feels over the whole time we watch this. The least redeeming feature for this hackneyed, wasted hour of screen-time is that there is virtually nothing of interest happening in these scenes aside from the childhood buddies tying up some loose-ends for a bittersweet ending and an incredibly bad voice over about how the Doolittle raid marked the end of America's losses in the Pacific and the beginning of the victories, and how America was changed forever by the war. Oh yeccchhh.

There were also parts of the first hour that were so bad I was really concerned I was about to see a terrible movie.
Final Score Pearl Harbor isn't going to get anyone a James Cameron night at the Oscars. The first hour had moments of truly insipid melodrama but looked gorgeous and had nice-looking leads who seemed earnest while they fell in love. It was enough to keep my attention until the battle scenes, which were spectacular. Then, for all intents and purposes, we had a one hour denouement that makes this film's rating drop from a hopeful 6 to a 4.