Fails miserably as a historical epic but...

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2002)

Maybe it's just my love of WW2 aircraft and uniforms but I found this movie to be not as bad as many people have said. Sure, it IS a terrible failure in it's attempt to be a love story as well as a historical recreation of Pearl Harbor, drafting in both Yamamoto and Roosevelt as supporting characters among other things. One is reminded of that dreadful TV Mini-series from the early 80's "The Winds of War" in its incompatible and grandiloquent narrative. The central love story though is actually not that bad and, like From Here to Eternity, it could have succeeded on its own merit of light-tragic drama with a minimum of expensive explosions and, at times, completely incredulous aerial combat sequences.
Less is more and this film just goes for more more more, ultimately making it just another summer action blockbuster with little or no historical relevance aside from it's 40's look and feel. A shame too, because if Bruckheimer and Bay weren't looking between every line for a mindless adrenaline rush this could have been a poignant tribute to the WW2 fighter pilot and Navy Nurse. Instead we get huge helpings of noise and action thrown at us, some of which is very realistic and fitting, some of which is as cheesy as any Star Wars dogfight over the deathstar, making you cringe at its phoniness. When the dogfight and B-25 scenes are good they're very good. But when they slip into unreal comic-book heroics they go way over the top.
On the ground floor this film is a slap in the face to every Pearl Harbor veteran wishing their story might have been told in the vein of Private Ryan or Yanks. But at times, as a romantic drama, it is very thoughtful and human, with some great buddy interaction between the flyboys and some down to earth sequences. Then it skews off into another movie with Roosevelt (Jon Voight has dreadful lines) and the Japanese Naval command, Admiral Kimmel, Doolittle, and so on. And of course this isn't helped by the insistence on embellished action. Even setting this story at Pearl Harbor was a big mistake. The writer should have realized it after the first draft and set it in a more low-key WW2 locale. The story of two pilots is not suited to Pearl Harbor where barely an American fighter got off the ground that day. And then the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo? If one of the men had been a sailor assigned to the Arizona and the other a pilot maybe there would have been more believability and logic to the storyline.
The title reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor, at 35 minutes or so, is just an exploitive money sequence and has really nothing to do with the plot. It does not even remotely feel realistic and captures none of the imagery we have seen for years in documentary footage which should have been a reference point.
Overall, visually sumptuous and mostly well acted, Pearl Harbor has many redeeming qualities undone by its many excesses. Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but still, not as bad as the reviews.

If nothing else watch it for the planes!