The hype, the action, the blockbuster. Was it worth it?

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2001)

Pearl Harbor. Almost everyone knows what happened, and where it is. It is the date "which will live in infamy". Call this the movie that will live in infamy. Besides the 40 minute attack sequence Pearl Harbor fails to deliver any sort of reson d'etre. The unnecessarily drawn out love story between the main characters is filled with Hollywood clichés and predictable "turns." The attack scene is incredible, and may be reason enough just to see the movie, but cannot make up for the lack of vision, creativity that turn a could-be masterpiece into another reproduction of the typical Hollywood genre. Just the kind of movie that I have come to expect from Jerry Suckheimer. The movie sparked a sense of nationalistic pride in me, and I am anything but a gung-ho patriot always pushing the American cause. But, alas, Bay and Bruckheimer stumble to produce anything more meaningful than a 3 hour movie which could have been 40 minutes and had the same effect.
The movie was comprised of two main parts: the attack scenes (interesting, entertaining, and despite the massive slaughter, incredible to watch) and the love scenes (sappy, overly dramatized, predictable. During the action scenes I can definitely say I was on the edge of my seat. Even if I knew what was going to happen I couldn't resist began caught up the spray of bullets, the hum of the Zeros, and the courage of the sailors as their ships were engulfed in flames. The latter scenes, however, were hardly anything new and spectacular. There were much better love stories in other movies, granted there's no USS Arizona, but if it's the love story you're going to see you definitely picked the wrong movie. I can't say enough about how bad these scenes were. My words would not do them justice.
As a final thought, I guess I would have to say I suggest it, purely to see the 40 minute attack on Pearl Harbor, but don't expect a Oscar-sweeping performance out of this movie. It will be interesting to see if Pearl Harbor stays afloat long enough shatter records for movies. See it, but don't expect to feel like you just saw a masterpiece.