Oh, dear!

Rating: 4/10 (15 July 2012)

Let's cut straight to the quick: four stars.
Four stars because the (relatively) early CGI is not at all bad, if overstated. Live action is pretty realistically mixed with virtual, although the aerial shots do look a tad artificial. Anyway, four stars for that.
Doesn't leave many stars for the rest though, does it? At three hours, this movie is at least 50% too long. It doesn't know where it's going - and it shows. If you just watched the first twenty minutes you could be forgiven in thinking it is a comedy, rather crudely done. The last half hour, the Doolittle raid sequence, is pure jingoistic make-believe. Then there's the middle bit: the raid on Pearl - and that doesn't start until nearly an hour and a half into the romantic comedy. Discombobulated is, I think, the appropriate designation.
I valiantly resisted seeing this film for years after reading how tedious it is in many reviews, but succumbed (this is 2012) and sat through the TV performance right through to the end.
I am uncomfortable with movies that are fiction dressed up with a strong historical theme. The blurring of fact and fiction is always an invitation to re-write history or, at least, be taken as fact by those who are unable to make the distinction. WW2 is recent enough to be well documented, and a movie such as Pearl Harbor does itself no favours by weaving a completely fictitious story into actual historical fact.
The really interesting story from a factual point of view was the failure of the intelligence services in the Pearl Harbour attack: this would itself have made a great movie but was hardly touched upon. As with Bletchley Park, much of the wins and losses in war are enacted behind the scenes and in secrecy.
And the music track - atrocious!
Sorry, but this falls into the same box as Independence Day - a jingoistic yawn. A wasted opportunity.