a good war movie, if understood.

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2002)

After repeated viewings of this movie, including the (quite superior) director's cut, I think I can finally give a good judgement on this movie. When people critisize this movie they most often complain about the corny love-story and the abundance of american patriotism (especially in the last part of the movie). But I think you're missing the point of the movie if you do that. Michael Bay wanted to recreate the emotions and experiences of Pearl Harbor. He chose as main theme, the loss of innocence, how the isolated USA suddenly realized they weren't invinsible and couldn't ignore the conflicts in the world. How he did this was by recreating the life-style of that era, of the 1940's. You have to understand that our ideas about love, sex, romance etc. are so different from people's thoughts in 1941. What to us sounds like cliché's, at that time, might very well be considered normal. The smooth-talking, the romantic goodbye-kisses etc.
This makes Pearl Harbor an interesting movie, because the movie doesn't really project the society in wich it was made (like American Beauty or Fight Club and probably about 90% of all movies), it's like a time-capsule. Pearl Harbor recreates the era of the 1940's with all it's beliefs and ideas. That also makes this movie, nowadays, not very easy to appreciate (especially when the whole world has already seen the quite similair Titanic), people just don't accept the movie, because it doesn't fit our current state of mind. It maby is too soft, too unchallenging for our minds.

And here lies the main critique you could pose to Michael Bay. Pearl Harbor isn't THAT facinating anymore in 2002, because the audience has already seen Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, even Tora!Tora!Tora!. Pearl Harbor isn't breaking any boundaries, as a movie (ignoring the FX), so people feel like they're watching a rehash of other War/Disaster movies. If it would have been released pre-Titanic, who knows, maby back then it would've won 10 oscars or whatever, because in my eyes it certainly isn't a worse movie than Titanic.
Taking this all into consideration, you come up with a movie that is actually quite good. The slick directing of Bay might not appeal to you (it isn't my favorite style either), but it has it's strong points, especially during the battle-scenes. The cinematography is also beautiful, though not really inventive. Acting, writing, it's all pretty solid. But you HAVE to accept the film for what it is, because if you look at it with a pair of 21st century-glasses, it looks like the most repulsive kind of military propaganda ever, full of cliché's and repeated formulas. Seeing it as a flashback-piece, a look in the past, Pearl Harbor becomes a gripping, spectacular and facinating look at the attack and how it changed America at that time.
overall, yeah, about an 8 out of 10.