We need a change.

Rating: 7/10 (9 July 2001)

I find this film one of the most difficult ones to comment. It has so many good points and so many bad points that you can think it's either a good or a bad film.
But, to avoid that complexity, I'll try to recall them and write them down here, and let you construct your own conclusion. Of course, you have to keep in mind at every moment that this is the most expensive film ever made so far. So these are the points.
1) The music. I place it at the first place because it is in my opinion the worst thing in the movie. This film needed a soundtrack by John Williams, for example. He would never have used that "minor seventh" chord for almost all the scenes (including both love and war scenes), which makes the film so emotionally flat. In Gladiator we have a good example of what music can do to a film (not to mention Star Wars...).
2) The script. Pearl Harbor has a really poor script, based on a simple and original idea but poorly developed. In Saving Private Ryan we have a simple and original idea brilliantly developed. The film is so predictable that 1 hour before its ending I already knew it (I think that even before that...). It's a paradox in a film which is based in a fact that's basically one of the biggest surprises in history. Well, you could say "but history is already known", and you would be right, but the film isn't already known until you watch it. In Titanic I really was surprised when the ship collided...!
3) The look. This film succeeds in creating another world for us. We feel transported to another time, with plenty of details, and that's something remarkable. The nurses look like fashion models, and Evelyn puts lipstick on her lips in every scene, but I'm not really sure if things were that way in 1941.
4) The special effects. Pearl Harbor has one of the best special effects I have ever seen. The war scenes are so real that they can override all the bad points we could find. A lot of CGI has been used, but it's well done and looks real. As a result there is the best recreation ever made of what the Pearl Harbor attack could be. As in Saving Private Ryan, we find ourselves inside the battle and understand what those people should feel.
5) The message. I know that films don't necessarily need a message, but this one needed one. And it really has one, but with a wrong envelope. In Saving Private Ryan, the old man at the cemetery asks his family if he is a good person. He has no physical injuries, but his soul is badly damaged, and desperately asks for a redemption to rip that black ghost away from him. We call this CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, and there's nothing of this in Pearl Harbor. Rafe and Danny kill a lot of people and pass through extreme situations, Evelyn lives the worst nightmare in her life, and after all of that we don't see any change in them. Most war films from the past (being most of them propaganda films) are the same way. That's NOT real, and doesn't help at all to send a message as we don't identify with the characters.
You can make your own conclusions. This is mine: Film industry has lost its aim, which used to be art. They live for the moment, and don't care for anything but money. Nowadays a lot of good special effects are the perfect passport to success. All the other elements are chosen by its impact on masses rather than by its artistic value. And the artistic value is what really makes great films adored by masses, but in a long term.
If you are curious about my rating to this film, here it is: 6-7/10.