Best film of the year!

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2001)

"War", as someone once trilled "What is it good for?" Well huge summer blockbuster, apparently. At least, that's what scourge of the arthouse crowd and best bud of the muiltplex mob, Jerry Brunkheimer, was betting when he decided to plough $135 million of Disney's money into Pearl Harbor. A risky proposition when you realise that it's not only a story about the invincible American military being caught with its pants down-climaxing in an ending that everybody knows-but has a cast, that while not by any means likely to turn down Lily Savage's Blankety Blank in a hurry, are certainly no guarantee of financial success. The question, then, is have Brunkheimer and his buddy Michael Bay (Armageddon) pulled it off? The answer is that, as usual, the Brunkheimer brand has delivered an almost dead-cert hit. Whilst a bit on the anoexic side in the dramatic weight department, it's a natural born blockbuster that ratchets the action bar up dozens of notches and represents the final coming of the age of CGI. Quite simply, you have never seen anything like it. Story-wise we're somewhere between Rolf Harris' Two Little Boys and Tora! Tora! Tora!, with best pals flying aces Affleck and Hartnett rowing over the affections of Kate Beckinsale, after she accidentally f***s the latter when the former is supposed to have been shot over Europe. Not Bay's determination to shoot everything by what appears to be a permanent sunset (and a pleasing sense of humour from Affeck vanishes far too quickly.) Bay's pre-war America looks like it emerged from a beer ad-little boys soapbox Sopwiths, while real-life biplanes zoom over amber waves of grains; trains rumble into stations in slo-mo amid billiowing clouds of steam; lovers curl in each others arms and say stuff like, "Do you think the war will ever reach us?" (for $135 million it'd better, baby!) But it is the bombing itself that always what this movie was going to live and die on, and here Bay really delivers, from an astonishing first 'bomb's eye view' shot that sees the camera follow a falling munition through the decks of the USS Arizona. Then comes perfectly timed detonation, using fantastically detailed long shots of hundreds of Japanease Zeroes buzzing around the exploding fleet. It's an amazing, visceral experience. ILM's CGI is, for the first time, indistinguishable from reailty. Torpedoes hiss under the thrashes feet of drowning soliders, men are blown through upturned ship's propellers towards the camera, and fighting plough into each other . It's an astounding, nerve-shredding experience that leaves the mealy-mouthed whining about flatpacked characterisation bobbing in the wreakage. And amongst the cliches, there's even a dog in the middle of the carnage.
TEN OUT OF TEN.