An utter waste of money, talent and history.

Rating: 1/10 (29 January 2005)

Pearl Harbor is a movie so spectacularly awful that it would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating. There hasn't been a big-budget re-enactment of the Pearl Harbor attack since Tora! Tora! Tora! in 1970, and, due to the utter failure of this movie on every level, it's unlikely it will be attempted again for a long, long time.
The writing is ludicrous. It's a series of situations and set pieces strung together without a single regard given to character development or even plausibility. The acting is beneath contempt. Ben Affleck should never have been let anywhere near this film, and in the "love" scenes between himself and Kate Beckinsdale, it appears patently obvious that the actors completely detest each other. The attack scene is filmed and edited like a Saturday morning cartoon. And...excuse me...in real life Pearl Harbor was a DEFEAT. There was none of the stupid garbage with slick fighter jocks dogfighting Japanese Zeros. This film makes it look like a victory! And, excuse me...FDR could not stand up by himself. The scene in the cabinet room where he rises from his chair was simply laughable.
This film is beyond bad. It is insulting. It's a 6-year-old's coloring book passed off as history. Aside from that, it's probably the limpest, shoddiest big-budget "epic" produced in the last 10 years. The day it opened in theaters was truly a day of infamy.