Good history, but lacks atmosphere before the attack; something is missing... could it be the music? (spoilers of a Boy Meets World episode)

Rating: Null/10 (25 October 2002)

Not that I loath Zimmer's score, I think it was masterful and beautiful, but for a story so similar to Titanic, wouldn't he have thought up some way to really compete with it? The song is nice but doesn't play orchestrally throughout the movie like Titanic, I suppose that's cause he didn't write it.
I like this movie, but only the parts minus the love story.
When I saw this, I wasn't expecting a Titanic ripoff. I was expecting something TRUE. I saw this very same thing (sort of) in a time travel episode of BOY MEETS WORLD. Cory goes off to the war, makes his best friend Shawn promise if he doesn't come back to marry Topanga, then he comes back from the dead so to speak, interrupting the wedding.
For an actor of Cuba's status I was surprised his character wasn't developed more. All that time they spent showing the closeness between the three fictional characters they could have spent on REAL people in Pearl Harbor before the attack, much like Cameron did in Titanic. See my review on that for more insight.
When my mom and stepfather got home from seeing this, I said, "Too bad it wasn't true," and my mom and stepfather were so misled by the love story they couldn't believe it was fiction. The same went for my sister and her husband, and even my brother who is an expert at war movies, ESPECIALLY WWII, was duped, and his girlfriend. What's hilarious is that I am the youngest out of all of them and I knew it was too soapy-Titanic-like to be true.
I don't care for war movies, so I can't really recommend an alternative one to seeing this, but I can advise, SEE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IF HISTORY IS WHAT YOU WANT, JUST WATCH THE ATTACK-THE END. Or perhaps check out some documentaries, or if you are into anything about America's involvement in WWII, watch BAND OF BROTHERS, excellent miniseries from HBO.
It's really a shame that they couldn't find ANYTHING AT ALL that would make the audience "care" for the real people in this event that they had to create FICTIONAL characters instead. Is this what historical filmmaking has been reduced to? Or were they just aching for a hit like Titanic?