For shame, Bay

Rating: 1/10 (17 October 2015)

I sat down to see this movie out of personal interest for WW2 history. I guess the warning lights should have started flashing when the director was Michael Bay, but I watched it anyway and wasted almost three hours of my life. Three themes are re-occurring in this movie: A desperate/embarrassing attempt at making a touching love story, a sickening amount of patriotic moments and (surprise!) tons of explosions to cover up the mess. The acting never convinces me and the whole "love drama in love in a war-torn world" is way too heavily emphasized. But most of the critique is aimed at Bay, who obviously finds it fitting to depict the very attack on the naval base (which, for some reason, is what people remember Pearl Harbor for), as a cowardly act of terror. Japan had declared war, the casualties we see are military personnel, and the revenge bombing of a city full of civilians is not as heroic and brave as Bay might think. Films about events of historic significance should be everything this plane crash (pun intended) is not.
1/10. And I'm being kind.