Every frame looks like the cover of a magazine

Rating: Null/10 (3 July 2001)

I really didn't want to see Pearl Harbor but I really liked it. I think the reason was that it was less of a Saving Private Ryan style hardcore war movie (although it had aspirations as such) and more of a summer popcorn flick. I liken it to sci-fi war movies like Independence Day and Starship Troopers (especially the latter). What I liked about it was that it made me appreciate the artistic side of filmmaking. The time and the effort which has been lavished on this movie makes every single frame look suitable for the cover of a glossy magazine. Some of the images from this movie would hang proudly on a wall. Its a mega budget flick, which shows you how much advertising and music video making has influenced cinema in the last ten years. Michael Bay made his debut with Bad Boys, and set the style which has been utilised in most every Jerry Bruckheimer film since, but he was following in the footsteps of Tony Scott. The Last Boy Scout and True Romance (as well as his earlier collaborations with Bruckheimer) all introduced elements of different styles of filmmaking, which included not only ads and vids but also Hong Kong flavourings which have since become the norm. Films like Pearl Harbour make me think about cinema in this way and it gets me excited. I love different movies for different reasons and I love this as art. Beats the crap out of Titanic, probably because it's more manly. I also thought how much Josh Hartnett looks like Jan Michael Vincent from TV's Airwolf, who in turn looks like Charles Bronson. They all have thin eyes which make them look like their looking into the sun constantly. I also thought that Jon Voight was really good, I could not believe this was the same man who hammed it up in Anaconda.