Alec Baldwin and Dan Aykroyd also have supporting roles, but seem as if they're in a Saturday Night Live parody most of the time. Baldwin, especially, looks like he's about to break out in an imitation of Pat O'Brien . The three main leads I discount Cuba Gooding Jr. here, who is simply wasted are interchangeable. I don't know how he kept a straight face in this movie. Josh Hartnett is pretty unmemorable as Affleck's childhood buddy who falls in love with the Girl, capital G, played by Kate Beckinsale as a Liv Tyler clone.
Some weird things go on in Pearl Harbor , too.
The Japanese, whom the filmmakers struggle to make sympathetic for international release but who nevertheless sneak attacked Pearl Harbor and killed 3,000 U.S. soldiers, come off as stock characters from a Benihana commercial. And almost no reference at all is made to the Germans or Adolf Hitler, who had something to do with World War II, I can't remember what. It's all so long ago, way before Carson Daly , Monica Lewinsky and two-way pagers. Channel Terms of use. All rights reserved.