A film that will live in infamy.

Rating: Null/10 (1 February 2002)

Make no mistake about it, this film is one of the most execrable ever to issue forth from the Hollywood studio system. A complete absence of insight into the mechanics of war or the emotional effects on its participants (other than "it makes them sad") is made all the more obvious by the vapid visuals which give the whole enterprise the look of a holiday advert. Bay's Pearl Harbor, unlike the filthy trenches of Paths of Glory or the squalid, gut-strewn beaches of Saving Private Ryan, looks like a nice place to visit. Missing many opportunities to point an accusing finger at the American administration at the time, who launched the atomic arms race at Hiroshima as revenge and as the ultimate scientific experiment (Nagasaki was the control), and who allowed Japan to perform human vivisections on the Chinese in return for a share of the data. There were so many corruptions, degradations, lies and disgraces on both sides, but Bay feels $130,000,000 is better spent on viewing the petty squabbles between his two pretty boy leads, who so obviously want to screw each other but need to find a surrogate female through which they can achieve some kind of sexual union without compromising their ultra-hetero (i.e. over-compensating) image. To trivialise a national tragedy, without analysing its causes is not only a stupid waste of resources, but, in this day and age, bordering on evil. Historical revisionism is the tool of dictators, fascists and, on this evidence, Hollywood studios embrace those values enough to stump up the largest budget ever granted at the start of a project. If you want to do serious history, don't employ Randall Wallace. The Mummy Returns was an appalling film, but besides being a sad waste of money and time, it didn't matter. I dread to think what might have happened if this had been taken as factual in the same way that Schindler's List has been. Fortunately, this film tips so far over the edge into jingoistic fervour that it is impossible to take any truths away from it. Luckily, the Japanese, who are portrayed throughout as sour, humourless, heartless tacticians, have been able to laugh off the offensive nature of this film, and in Japan it is seen as a romance with a few explosions in it.