An incredibly corny, war-glamorizing, anti-historical film that I found surprisingly entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (25 July 2001)

I did not want to like this film. Much of the dialogue is corny and sappy in a bad 1930s Broadway musical kind of way. The plot is barely focused on the historical details of the Pearl Harbor bombing, even though that is the title of the film. There is a sort of light-hearted jovial attitude to this whole war business, as if everyone is just out to have a good time. Whenever Alex Baldwin's character spoke, it made me feel like laughing. (I kept picturing him in that SNL skit about ten years ago where he played the boy scout leader.) And yet, I found myself enjoying this whole film and wanting to see what came next for almost the entire three hours. I did not ever get bored. I laughed (sometimes when other people were crying, but hey, that's why you get when you write lines so sappy that they get stuck in the audience's hair) and I cried (mostly during the battle scene). And that battle scene, wow, what a tremendous piece of work. Just non-stop gripping action for an hour. I guess my main comment on a film such as this is that I feel guilty for liking it because I believe that some of its images are so NOT the way life (or history) is. Everything is just too easy in this flick. But I guess if one accepts it as entertainment, then, eh, whatever.