Pearl Harbor

**Pearl Harbor** is a 2001 American live-action film directed by Michael Bay.

It focuses on the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, focusing on a love story set amidst the lead up to the attack, its aftermath, and the Doolittle Raid.

The film premiered on May 21, 2001 in Hawaii, and was released theatrically on May 25, 2001.

## Plot

In 1923 Tennessee, two best friends, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, play together in the back of an old biplane, pretending to be fighting airmen.

In January 1941, with World War II raging, Danny and Rafe are both first lieutenants under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle. Doolittle informs Rafe that he has been accepted into the Eagle Squadron (an RAF outfit for American pilots during the Battle of Britain). A nurse named Evelyn Johnson passes Rafe's medical exam despite his dyslexia, and the two strike up a relationship. Four weeks later, Rafe and Evelyn, now deeply in love, enjoy an evening of dancing at a nightclub and later a jaunt in the New York harbour in a borrowed police boat. Rafe shocks Evelyn by saying that he has joined the Eagle Squadron and is leaving the next day. During a mission to intercept a Luftwaffe bombing raid, Rafe is shot down over the English Channel and is presumed killed in action. Danny and Evelyn mourn Rafe's death together, which spurs a romance between the two.

Meanwhile, Japan prepares to attack the US Pacific Fleet, deciding the best way to do so would be a decisive strike on the Pearl Harbor naval base.

On the night of December 6, Evelyn is shocked to discover Rafe standing outside her door, having survived his drowning and the ensuing months trapped in Nazi-occupied France. Rafe, in turn, discovers Danny's romance with Evelyn and leaves for the Hula bar, where he is welcomed back by his overjoyed fellow pilots. Danny finds a drunken Rafe in the bar with the intention of reconciling, but the two get into a fight. They drive away, avoiding being put in the brig when the military police arrive at the bar. The two fall asleep in Danny's car.

Next morning, on December 7, the Imperial Japanese Navy begins its attack on Pearl Harbor. The US Pacific Fleet is severely damaged in the surprise attack, and most of the defending airfields are obliterated before they are able to launch fighters to defend the harbour. Rafe and Danny take off in P-40 fighter planes, and they shoot down several of the attacking planes. They later assist in the rescue of the crew of the capsized USS Oklahoma, but are too late to save the crew of the obliterated USS Arizona.

The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Day of Infamy speech to the nation and requests that the US Congress declare a state of war with the Empire of Japan. The survivors attend a memorial service to honour the numerous dead. Danny and Rafe are both assigned to travel stateside under Doolittle, though they are not told why. Before they leave, Evelyn reveals to Rafe that she is pregnant with Danny's child. She intends to stay with and devote herself to Danny for their child’s sake, but she vows that it is Rafe who she will always truly love.

Danny and Rafe are both promoted to captain and awarded the Silver Star for their actions at Pearl Harbor, and Doolittle asks them to volunteer for a secret mission. During the next three months, Rafe, Danny and other pilots train for ultra-short take-offs with specially modified B-25 Mitchell bombers. In April, the raiders are sent toward Japan on board USS Hornet. Their mission is to bomb Tokyo, after which they will land in China. The mission is successful, but Rafe's and Danny's planes run out of fuel and crash in Japanese-occupied territory in China. A gunfight ensues between the raiders and Japanese ground troops, and Danny is mortally wounded shielding Rafe before the group are rescued by Chinese soldiers. Rafe tearfully reveals to Danny that Evelyn is pregnant with Danny's child; with his dying breaths, Danny tells Rafe that it is his child now.

After the war, Rafe and Evelyn, now married, visit Danny's grave with Evelyn's son, named Danny after his biological father. Rafe then asks his stepson if he would like to go flying, and they fly off into the sunset in the old biplane that Rafe's father once owned.

## Cast and Characters

* Ben Affleck as the First Lieutenant / Captain Rafe McCawley
	+ Jesse James as Young Rafe McCawley.
* Josh Hartnett as First Lieutenant / Captain Danny Walker
	+ Reiley McClendon as Young Danny Walker.
* Kate Beckinsale as Lieutenant Evelyn Johnson
* Tom Sizemore as Sergeant Earl Sistern
* Jaime King as Betty Bayer
* Catherine Kellner as Barbara
* Jennifer Garner as Sandra
* Sara Rue as Martha
* William Lee Scott as First Lieutenant Billy Thompson
* Ewen Bremner as First Lieutenant "Red" Winkle
* Greg Zola as First Lieutenant Anthony Fusco
* Michael Shannon as First Lieutenant "Gooz" Wood
* Matt Davis as Second Lieutenant Joe McKinnon
* Dan Aykroyd as Captain Harold Thurman
* Kim Coates as Lieutenant Jack Richards
* Tony Curran as Ian
* Nicholas Farrell as Royal Air Force Squadron Leader
* William Fichtner as Mr. Walker
* Steve Rankin as Mr. McCawley
* John Fujioka as General Nishikura
* Leland Orser as Major Jackson
* Ted McGinley as Major Newman
* Andrew Bryniarski as Joe
* Brandon Lozano as Baby Danny McCawley
* Eric Christian Olsen as a B-25 gunner to McCawley.
* Sean Faris as a B-25 gunner to Walker.
* Cuba Gooding Jr. as Petty Officer Second Class Doris Miller
* Jon Voight as President Franklin D. Roosevelt
* Colm Feore as Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
* Mako as Kaigun Taishō Isoroku Yamamoto
* Alec Baldwin as Major Jimmy Doolittle
* Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Kaigun Chūsa Minoru Genda
* Scott Wilson as General George C. Marshall
* Graham Beckel as Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
* Tom Everett as Frank Knox
* Tomas Arana as Rear-Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher
* Peter Firth as Captain Mervyn S. Bennion
* Glenn Morshower as Vice Admiral William Halsey Jr.
* Yuji Okumoto as Kaigun-Daii Zenji Abe
* Madison Mason as Admiral Raymond A. Spruance
* Michael Shamus Wiles as Captain Marc Mitscher
* Seth Sakai as Takeo Yoshikawa

## Music

The soundtrack to Pearl Harbor on Hollywood Records was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (Moulin Rouge! won). The original score was composed by Hans Zimmer. The song "There You'll Be" was nominated for the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

## Production

The proposed budget of $208 million that Bay and Bruckheimer wanted was an area of contention with Disney executives, since a great deal of the budget was to be expended on production aspects. Also controversial was the effort to change the film's rating from R to PG-13. Bay initially wanted to graphically portray the horrors of war and was not interested in primarily marketing the final product to a teen and young adult audience. However, even though he wanted to make an R-rated movie, Bay admitted that the problem was that young children would not be able to see it, and he felt that they should. As such, when he was ordered by Disney to make a PG-13 movie, he didn't argue. As a compromise, he was allowed to release an R-rated Director's Cut on DVD later on in 2002. Budget fights continued throughout the planning of the film, with Bay "walking" on several occasions. Dick Cook, chairman of Disney at the time, said "I think Pearl Harbor was one of the most difficult shoots of modern history."

In order to recreate the atmosphere of pre-war Pearl Harbor, the producers staged the film in Hawaii and used current naval facilities. Many active duty military members stationed in Hawaii and members of the local population served as extras during the filming. The set at Rosarito Beach in the Mexican state of Baja California was used for scale model work as required. Formerly the set of Titanic (1997), Rosarito was the ideal location to recreate the death throes of the battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack. A large-scale model of the bow section of USS Oklahoma mounted on the world's largest gimbal produced an authentic rolling and submerging of the doomed battleship. Production Engineer Nigel Phelps stated that the sequence of the ship rolling out of the water and slapping down would involve one of the "biggest set elements" to be staged. Matched with computer generated imagery, the action had to reflect precision and accuracy throughout.

The vessel most seen in the movie was USS Lexington, representing both USS Hornet and a Japanese carrier. All aircraft take-offs during the movie were filmed on board the Lexington, a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. The aircraft on display were removed for filming and were replaced with film aircraft as well as World War II anti-aircraft turrets. Other ships used in filler scenes included USS Hornet, and USS Constellation during filming for the carrier sequences. Filming was also done on board the museum battleship USS Texas located near Houston, Texas.

## Release

### Marketing

Disney premiered the film at Pearl Harbor itself, aboard the active nuclear aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which made a six-day trip from San Diego to serve as "the world's largest and most expensive outdoor theatre". More than 2,000 people attended the premiere on the Stennis, which had special grandstand seating and one of the world's largest movie screens assembled on the flight deck. The guests included various Hawaii political leaders, most of the lead actors from the film, and over 500 news media from around the world that Disney flew in to cover the event. The party was estimated to have cost Disney $5 million.

### Home Media

The film was released on VHS and DVD on December 4, 2001. In its first week, it sold more than 7 million units and made more than $130 million in retail sales.

The film was also released in 2002 as an R-rated four-disc Director's Cut DVD, which included about a minute of additional footage.

## Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 24% based on 194 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Pearl Harbor tries to be the Titanic of war movies, but it's just a tedious romance filled with laughably bad dialogue. The 40-minute action sequence is spectacular, though." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A-" on scale of A to F.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars, writing: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centrepiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them." Ebert also criticized the liberties the film took with historical facts: "There is no sense of history, strategy or context; according to this movie, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because America cut off its oil supply, and they were down to an 18-month reserve. Would going to war restore the fuel sources? Did they perhaps also have imperialist designs? Movie doesn't say." In his later "Great Movies" essay on Lawrence of Arabia, Ebert likewise wrote, "What you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word 'epic' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God didn't cost as much as the catering in Pearl Harbor, but it is an epic, and Pearl Harbor is not."

A. O. Scott of the New York Times wrote, "Nearly every line of the script drops from the actors' mouths with the leaden clank of exposition, timed with bad sitcom beats." USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "Ships, planes and water combust and collide in Pearl Harbor, but nothing else does in one of the wimpiest wartime romances ever filmed."

In his review for The Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "although this Walt Disney movie is based, inspired and even partially informed by a real event referred to as Pearl Harbor, the movie is actually based on the movies Top Gun, Titanic and Saving Private Ryan. Don't get confused." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "Affleck, Hartnett and Beckinsale – a British actress without a single worthy line to wrap her credible American accent around – are attractive actors, but they can't animate this moldy romantic triangle." Time magazine's Richard Schickel criticized the love triangle: "It requires a lot of patience for an audience to sit through the dithering. They're nice kids and all that, but they don't exactly claw madly at one another. It's as if they know that someday they're going to be part of "the Greatest Generation" and don't want to offend Tom Brokaw. Besides, mega history and personal history never integrate here."

Entertainment Weekly was more positive, giving the film a "B−" rating, and Owen Gleiberman praised the Pearl Harbor attack sequence: "Bay's staging is spectacular but also honourable in its scary, hurtling exactitude... There are startling point-of-view shots of torpedoes dropping into the water and speeding toward their targets, and though Bay visualizes it all with a minimum of graphic carnage, he invites us to register the terror of the men standing helplessly on deck, the horrifying split-second deliverance as bodies go flying and explosions reduce entire battleships to liquid walls of collapsing metal."

In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "here is the ironic twist in my acceptance of Pearl Harbor, the parts I liked most are the parts before and after the digital destruction of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese carrier planes" and felt that "Pearl Harbor is not so much about World War II as it is about movies about World War II. And what's wrong with that?"

Critics in Japan received the film more positively than in most countries with one likening it to Gone with the Wind set during World War II and another describing it as more realistic than Tora! Tora! Tora!.

### Box Office

During its opening weekend, Pearl Harbor generated a total of $59 million, then made $75.1 million during its first four days. At the time, it achieved the second-highest Memorial Day weekend gross, behind The Lost World: Jurassic Park. When the film was released, it topped the box office, knocking out Shrek. It earned $30 million during its second weekend while staying at the number one spot. This was the most recent film to top the box office for multiple weeks until that August when American Pie 2 became the next one to do so. The film would then drop into third place behind Swordfish and Shrek, making $14.9 million. Pearl Harbor grossed $198,542,554 at the US and Canadian box office and $250,678,391 overseas for a worldwide total of $449,220,945. The film was ranked the sixth highest-earning picture of 2001. In Japan, the film opened on 424 screens and grossed $7.2 million in its opening weekend (including $1.6 million in previews), a record for Buena Vista International in Japan, and the sixth highest opening of all-time. It had a record opening in China, grossing $3.9 million in 6 days. It is also the third highest-grossing romantic drama film of all time, as of January 2013, behind Titanic and Ghost.