Top Titanic

Rating: Null/10 (30 May 2001)

It's obvious that when Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay heard about the record breaking gross for TITANIC, they put heads together and said, "let's make our own 20th century tragic disaster film." Thus in early 1998 Bruckheimer and Bay announced the planning on making the film PEARL HARBOR. The original cast included Cameron Diaz and Gene Hackman, but through time the actors became Kate Beckinsdale and Jon Voight. But it would be expected that there would be big explosions and special effects for this film. And this film does have big explosions and special effects. But first let's get to the plot (which some would critize that there really isn't one). Ben Affleck plays Kentucky native Rafe McCawley (with a bad Southern accent) and Josh Hartnett is his long time best friend Danny Walker. Rafe falls in love with volunteer nurse Evelyn Johnson (the ravishing beautiful Kate Beckinsdale), and Rafe tells Evelyn that he is going over to England to help the English fight against the Nazi's, since this is in early 1941. Rafe's plane is hit while flying causing his plane to crash and Danny and Evelyn to think he's dead. So to put the past behind, Evelyn falls in love with Danny, and realizes that Danny is more "fun" to be with. Then Rafe comes back stateside and shocks both Danny and Evelyn, and did I forget to mention that this is in Hawaii and it's December 6th 1941? Anyways, just when Rafe and Danny's friendship is about to come to a end, dozens of Japanesse airplanes fly into Hawaii and begin attacking Pearl Harbor, thus making it a frighting and unforgettable scenes to watch.
There is good news and bad news about this film. The good news, the attack of Pearl Harbor is frighting, spectacular, exciting, and unforgettable. The bad news, in this 3 hour plus film, it takes 90 minutes for the film to get to the attack. So it's another obvious factor, Bay is trying to pull the romantic factor from TITANIC to make the character's three dimensional. But there's a difference, Leonardo DiCapprio and Kate Winslet had chemistry, Affleck, Beckinsdale and Hartnett don't. That makes the first nintey minutes of PEARL HARBOR very very s-l-o-w and unintresting. You just want everyone to die just so it can get to the attack, since the characters are so cliche. And the supporting characters are no better for both the men (the guy who tries to get a girl in bed, the one who stutters, the one who wonders why can't he get a girl) and the women (the flirt, the brain, the obese one, etc.) Then the film shows scenes of airplane flying in the clouds during a sunset that looks like something from Bruckheimer's other flying film, TOP GUN (which also was another boring romance film). I was just waiting to hear Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" being played in the soundtrack. Then it happens. The attack. The Japanesse planes fly in looking like something from one of the STAR WARS films. They fly over a valley, over a woman hanging clothes on a line, and by a baseball field where kids are playing a early morning game. The first torpedo is dropped, as the sailors wonder was is heading towards them, and BOOM!!! All hell breaks loose. For the next seventy minutes is very horrific scenes of sailors getting shot, blown up, or even drowned. This is when the movie works, it's just as intense as the sinking of TITANIC and just has frighting as the attack of Normady in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. The film's pacing went from 10 mph to 100 mph!!! Then, the attack is over and the film drops back to 15 mph, brining the sappy love story back into the spotlight, and making the audience groan. I did enjoy the acts of PEARL HARBOR II and III, but part I should have been cut, massively. Bay figured that people want a three hour romantic epic, and yes we do, but we also want intresting characters!! I really didn't care much of the acting by the actors who played fictional characters (but Kate Beckinsdale was so pretty to look at that I would rather be with her and die at Pearl Harbor than to be on the sinking Titanic with Kate Wislet). It's the actors who play the factual characters that are good: Cuba Gooding Jr. playing Dorie Miller, a colored sailor who fought back at the Japanesse during the attack; Jon Voight as the respectable President Roosevelt who will not let America fall down to the Japanesse; and Alec Baldwin as the crusty and brave Col. Doolittle who led the defense attack at Tokyo because of Pearl Harbor. I did also highly enjoy the score by Academy winner Hans Zimmer. The score to this film is more romantic and whimiscal, unlike his dramatic scores like from THE ROCK, CRIMSON TIDE, and GLADIATOR, so it was a very nice different change. And Randall Wallace does succeed and fail with the script, he succeeds during and after the attack, he fails during the first 90 minutes. But compared to the other summer films (MUMMY RETURNS, SHREK, and KNIGHT'S TALE) PEARL HARBOR is the best summer film, so far. I know it's not saying much since so far this is a very disappointing summer, but I did enjoy it more than the others. It's not a classic that Touchstone Pictures is pushing it to be, and it's no TITANIC that Bruckheimer and Bay are trying to make it be. But it is entertaining and enjoyable, and is worth watching. But Michael Bay must remember this old saying, "less is better" and for this film, that would have made this film better. **** (out of five)