The Summer Movie version of War

Rating: 3/10 (26 May 2001)

It's not that Pearl harbor is a bad movie. In fact many parts of it were quite enjoyable. My dissatisfaction comes from the fact that this is obviously an attempt at a summer movie rather than an Oscar candidate. If I was a World War II vet (or any vet for that matter) or a Pearl Harbor survivor, I honestly think I'd be extremely ticked off.
Pearl Harbor was a profound event in American History. The attack basically awakened America from its Great Depression and launched us into WWII and eventually the atomic age/cold war/etc. I get goose bumps every time I listen to FDR's famous speech. And yet this movie spends more time trying to entertain than providing the real drama of the tragedies of war. They show the Arizona exploding but don't follow it all the way down, I did not feel the sorrow in the aftermath scenes that I did in Saving Private Ryan, when this was an ultimately more tragic event in that we were the losers. If they wanted real drama drop 30 minutes of the love story and focus 30 more minutes on the tragedy of war.
Saving Private Ryan this isn't. This is WWII meets Armaggedon. It's a very well done Summer Movie. However anything dealing with Pearl Harbor deserves better than a summer movie listing. 7-10