What a waste!

Rating: 1/10 (11 June 2001)

This was a wasted opportunity to make a meaningful film about one of America's greatest tragedies. This was Hollywood at its worst.
The acting was so bad, the story took great liberties with the true historical facts, and the lack of military accuracy was almost funny.
So, two stud Army fighter pilots are so good that one of them flies for the RAF (without having to resign his U.S. Army commission), they both manage to shoot down Japanese planes during the Pearl Harbor attack and still have time to help out at the hospital and help rescue Sailors trapped in ships. On top of that, these two fighter pilots are personally requested by Jimmy Doolittle to fly bombers against Japan several months later. Totally unbelievable!
The most ridiculous moment was the shot of the Japanese tail gunner waving to the kids to take cover. Give me a break!
Alec Baldwin playing Jimmy Doolittle? The same "I'm going to leave the USA if Bush is elected" Alec Baldwin playing Medal of Honor hero General Jimmy Doolittle? For shame! Doolittle must be rolling in his grave. Baldwin really hams it up in this one. He should read up on Doolittle to learn a little bit about what it takes to be an American.
The love story was weak, the acting was cliche, and while the special effects were stunning, the accuracy of what a WWII plane can and can not do was poorly depicted. As was the constant shots of modern carrier task forces to depict the Japanese fleet. With that much money spent on special effects you'd think that they would at least have the attention to detail to avoid using stock shots of modern-day ships.
The "technical advisors" for this movie should hang their heads in shame.