Watchable, but has some problems

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2001)

***MAJOR SPOILERS***
Although this picture invites comparison to Titanic, there will be no best picture nod for Pearl Harbor. Titanic was a love story within the backdrop of a sinking ship. It transcended all prior Titanic movies and disaster films. Pearl harbor, on the other hand, takes three historical events (the American's participation in the RAF pre-war, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the Doolittle raid) and glues it together with a weak love story.
Here are some bullets of why the movie could have been better:
The female lead is a cardboard character. We never learn anything about her except that she is quick to fall in love and is a bit 'easy' for a 40's girl. The only reason that the men seem to fall in love with her is that she is good looking. From the beginning she is given to the viewers as a "nurse" and we don't get much more background on her character. It makes it hard to relate to the love story when we barely understand why either man would be interested in her, and we don't understand her at all. Moreso, it is also difficult to get involved with her story line later in the film when she finally gets some screen time that isn't just eye-candy.
The love triangle doesn't really work from a dramatic standpoint. I mean there is no tension associated with it. For the whole Doolittle raid, I could have cared less who got killed and who came back. I figured it would be one of them that died, but didn't really care which one. It was not clear why the "nurse" would choose either of them over the other. I had no stake in either relationship and thus there was no dramatic tension. Do we care who she ends up with? Did it matter which one? Nope. It all just seems a bit strange to me, she was willing to take whichever survived. Weird.
A minor point, but I thought about it during the film during the excessively *LONG* setup for the battle (the calm before the storm I guess). Heck if you are going to spend millions to make a film look historically accurate, then spend some money on some body makeup. Fact: soldiers (including the nurses) in the '40s stationed in Hawaii would have had serious tans. Tanning was considered healthy and the correlation with skin cancer had not yet been established. From what we see of these characters they spend a lot of time barely dressed on the beach, but they are as white as a sheet of paper.
Our two pilots, last we see them, are in the air shooting down zeros. Yahoo this if fun! Next thing you know, they are in the hospital, "how can we help". As viewers, we totally loose the continuity of the film. I'm asking myself, uhhh... where did they come from? What happend to all their buddies at the airfield? Next thing you know they are helping with the Arizona (for about 15 second) and then they are back at the hospital. This was lame. It detracted and distracted from the film. Sure it provided a mechanism to show some melodramic scenes, but wouldn't a few secondary characters have been better to fill out this part of the story without causing it to be so choppy?
Cuba. Ok, I love Cuba, but he is a token in this movie. His story line is totally contrived. For an actor that can add so much energy to a film, he is a token character with a pitiful add-on story. Unfortunately, his story doesn't fit with the rest of the narrative. When we all meet him and learn that all he wanted to do was to shoot a gun, we all know what is coming. Strange thing, in a blurt of exposition, we learn about why he wanted to join the Navy. Funny that we got that background on him with as little screen time as he had and we didn't even get that much background on the cardboard nurse. Hmmm. Guess this was a guy's flick so why bother with the women. Perhaps if this was an ensemble cast that followed several story lines, then Cuba's role would work. However, instread, we get the love story, with Cuba tacked on. Waste of talent and a waste of time.
A long long long build up to the bombing scene. We get the long build up of the "life as usual" on Hawaii. See how unsuspecting they were. In case you didn't get it the first time, we will show you two other times that they have nothing to do at the hospital. Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. And then the battle starts to commence, the Japanese start to move in, and we get the "calm before the storm" scenes. People walking about unawares that all hell is about to break loose. Boy that took a long time. I was happy when the first torpedo finally hit!
The Doolittle raid. Ok, for those that say this is a love story like Titanic, explain the need for this raid to the dramatic structure of the film. It would have been a much better film if the Pearl Harbor bombing had been written to showcase the resolution of the love triangle. However, during the bombing, the love story is essentially on hold. Our boys just run around, oops now they're in a plane, no a hospital, no a boat, and then all of the sudden its over. Ok, now we are back to the love story, hmmm... what should we do. Ok, how about the Doolittle raid? Frankly by this point I was checking my watch. This whole raid could have been cut from the screenplay. I know that many of you will argue that the Doolittle raid puts the film in historical perspective. But that is not really what the movie is about... its about the love story. This is the biggest problem with the film, no dramatic direction, no dramatic tension.
Who cared when Betty died? Show of hands? Me neither. A) it was predictable. B) she joined the army to meet boys, what an interesting character, not!
How PC can you get? Heck, I liked the Japanese general... he seemed like a nice guy. Anybody that is complaining about anit-Japanese sentiment hasn't seen the film - it takes long strides not to villify the Japanese. And Cuba's role, though it hinted (just barely) at racism, didn't really have any meat - heck he seemed like he had a pretty good deal going. There were undertones of some sort of race related something, but no real story there. If you are going to make a statement - make it! Don't just tip toe around the subject. Heck, there was more about the Brit/Yank discrimination in the RAF than any sort of black/white thing.
Unfortunately, from a directorial standpoint, this movie also draws comparisons to Armageddon. It suffers from many of the same problems. It tends to meander and loose direction and has no dramatic tension to pull the viewer from scene to scene. Armageddon didn't have that either. However, suffice it to say that it is a much more solid screenplay than Armageddon.
Ok, now, after telling all of you why the film could have been better, I will say that it was basically watchable. There was enough of a story and enough of a historical interested that I was entertained. If I were you, I would go see it, but I bet you won't see it twice.
I can't see rating it higher than a 5, unless you are pretty gullible for the melodramtic, predictable, Hollywood, and hackneyed. Its movies like these that makes me believe that I could make a living writing screenplays instead of reviews.