Overkill is the word for Pearl Harbor. Pity!

Rating: 3/10 (20 July 2001)

Now, Disney knows one thing very well, and that is trivialising and sentimentalising a story and presenting even the most tragic events as if it's another happy day for Lassie. This works in Lassie, or in Free Willy, when we see the relationship between a poor animal in danger and a poor, lonely, but gifted kid. However, this same Disney formula that worked with many films made Pearl Harbor a total flop. Its subject is one of the most tragic events in World War II and never understands what it is talking about. It tells us the story of a pilot with dyslexia and his best friend with an awful background narrative, puts in a love triangle which doesn't make one want to know what will happen next as we already may guess what's to happen from the 10th minute of the film. Besides, as it's Disney, we know that one has to die, and bravely so that the remaining friend gets the girl as he already deserved. The story that tells us about the real event is very poorly told as if it's not a $270m production but a high-school drama on very limited resources and which can't be bold enough to say the things it might actually want to say. So, we keep wondering why the President is first uninterested then becomes too involved in a Japanese attack on the Pacific, we don't understand whether the character played by Mr. Aykroyd is there to show the human side of events or how his incompetence caused the loss of many soldiers' lives in Pearl Harbor, we don't see why the colonel played by Mr. Baldwin is actually joking about shirts when nearly his entire fleet is bombed to dust and so on. Thus, the script sucks. Acting, though names are good and great, is second-rate, with the exception of Cuba Gooding, jr., who surely is cast to have some African-Americans watch the film. However, I'm not sure if he or anyone really undertstood what his part is about: A black cook fights for respect, and then gets caught in the battle and sees his captain die and tries to shoot some Japanese fighter planes and fails. This doesn't really make one want to go and hug African-Americans or weep for what a brave transformation this man experienced. That we see his boxing opponent while trying not to drown doesn't make anything any better, either, as it seems to say `See, this bulky guy wasn't good at the ring and isn't good at saving himself and his mates from death, either. Failure once,...' The romantic scenes are as if they are from a primary school skit, so I'm not bothering to talk on them. The scenes at the hospital when things go mad made me feel disoriented from the film with all those stupid games with light exposure, that thing didn't work on Traffic, doesn't work here, won't work anywhere else, directors should just stop doing this. Besides, dialogues were shabby, most characters were cartoonish, and although there were some Disney moments when one wanted to weep for the heroes' friendship, the whole bunch of characters failed to impress me. And, that's the worst part, really: You don't want to be absorbed in the story of characters that don't affect you. The love theme in Titanic was as bad if not worse than this one, but Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet made us watch the film with their brilliance. Here, however, it can't be done because Ben Affleck isn't actually a good leading actor, and Josh Hartnett is nowhere near a Ryan Phillippe or Leo DiCaprio so that we may feel the need to devote ourselves to his character's story. What we have here is a couple of farmboys who love the same nurse and who know to do one good number on air, risking their lives and the resources of the country. Had the leads been, say, Ryan Phillippe and Jonathan Brandis, instead of Affleck and Hartnett, things might be far different as their auras would make the film watchable and perhaps enable it to profit. In addition, I must admit I am surprised to see Kate Beckinsale who was brilliant in Shooting Fish to be this motionless, motiveless, looking either depressed or bored all through the film. To sum it up, although the battle scenes were spectacular (despite one feels the CGI effects every now and then) and the cast was full of well-known actors, the film is a case of overdosing of many a stories into one. This formula had worked in Braveheart that Randal Wallace had also written because Sir William Wallace and his alter-ego Mel Gibson were full of charisma, but it miserably fails this time as the film suffers from the overkill effect. It might have been a far better movie with an hour or more of it cut out. It would have been good if we knew the names of the other pilots rather than that of the nurses, if we followed the stories of the two friends who believe in fighting for their country and the good of humanity, and had the film centred on the attack and the Washington DC events; not on the lousy love story which made me look for a sick-bag at times. I felt really bad about this film as I had some hopes as it tells a strong historical story and I liked Ben Affleck as an actor. I must say, I'm gravely disappointed at the end. For those who might like this one, I very strongly recommunend to see Enemy at the Gates as it was the best war film with a romance sub-theme. Pearl Harbor's director and actors and producers should watch it and weep in shame after they see how the scenes of war that can touch the very heart of the audience can be filmed and what good acting is.