Pearl Harbor

It's not like I want my money back or anything, but I won't see it a second time. My review, from my board:

SUMMARY

An ace pilot (Ben Affleck) and his best friend since childhood (Josh Hartnett) both fall for an army nurse (Kate Beckinsdale). Oh, and there are these big boats, you see, and...


RECOMMENDED FOR:

FX nuts with a lot of patience for unoriginal love triangle stories.


REVIEW

If only Pearl Harbor was actually about Pearl Harbor.

Instead, it revolves around an unoriginal rehash of a love triangle involving two best friends and a girl. Nobody cares, because a) the girl is a ditz, and b) the two best friends in question seem to be capable of doing only two things: aerial combat and Point A.

Where the film excels is in the arena of being a spectacle of light and sound, and exactly the sort of movie I might buy on DVD one day for a discount price so I can use it to demo my home theatre system (a task in which Saving Private Ryan already suffices). The big question is why it didn't emphasize what it's good at, and what director Michael Bay is good at: blowing things up.

The big answer is that Pearl Harbor simply tries too hard to go beyond the historical aspect and introduce a stock love story aspect. In fact, it pushes the love story so hard that the actual devastation of Pearl Harbor is only the second act of a three-act drama. It is possible to have an optimistic perspective on similar films such as Titanic, and say that maybe the film really was about the ship and the love story is a subplot, but Pearl Harbor leaves no room for any doubt that the love story is the story. The movie is probably titled Pearl Harbor not because of the attack there, but because the romantic plot takes shape primarily in Hawaii. Those clever marketeers, what will they think of next?

The love story might even have worked if it actually had some relevance underneath the war instead of attempting to transcend it. If only it was realized that "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." (Didn't anyone learn anything from Casablanca?)

Disregarding this major and expected lapse in judgment on the part of the filmmakers, as a production, Pearl Harbor is spectacular. The effects work is beautiful, and the overall visual impact is impressive. The colour balance is particularly notable, and can be used as a convincing argument for shooting more historical films in Technicolor. The actual attack on Pearl Harbor is by far and wide the highlight of the film, and actually seems rather short as a result of this. The sound work is tremendous, and in that respect this is the year's movie to beat.

Hans Zimmer's score was not a total ripoff of another film (i.e. James Horner's music for Enemy At The Gates) but is a testament to the degrading trend of using unmelodious string chorales in World War II films, of which the only one worth mentioning is John Williams' Saving Private Ryan score, which wasn't exactly one of the high points of his career either. Zimmer also lifts a few chord progressions and the occasional thumping timpani out of Gladiator, but is apparently too lazy to come up with something memorably thematic for Pearl Harbor. Let's wake up and smell the coffee: big historical films need big scores if they want to be remembered. Pearl Harbor's score is decent and workable, just not terribly memorable. For this reason, among others, the film itself will not be terribly memorable either.

Randall Wallace's screenplay did not have the banality of Titanic, nor the memorability of Wallace's other script of Braveheart - the dialogue is simply average. However, it tilted into the realm of banality with regards to how Franklin Roosevelt is written. Are we meant to think that even in plain conversation, the guy talked like he was doing a speech on national radio? Jon Voight's lackluster acting certainly didn't help much, either.

And what's with the seemingly intentional lack of grammatical correctness in the English subtitles of the dialogue of the Japanese characters?

All in all, Pearl Harbor is a very average movie, but one that offers the best visual spectacle of the year so far.

Well Iron, I think you liked it a bit more than I did, my review wasn't nearly as kind I'm afraid.

You are right about the effects and the battle scenes during Pearl Harbor, very beatiful and frightening, perfectly done. But they went on so long that towards the end of the battle they lose effect. And then there are the other battle scenes in the film, Rafe's dogfighting in Europe, and the final gratutious America triumphs battle, both of which where VERY underwhelming in both the way they were presented and the way they were filmed.

But even with great effects, god I was bored out of my mind most of the time. I mean the Pearl Harbor battle is like 15 minutes out of a 3 hour movie, the rest of the time I was just looking at my watch.

Aw geez! I hate it when they take what has potential to be a great historical epoch and turn it into a love story or something else it`s not meant to be (Titanic is a great example). That`s what was so nice about 13 Days. It didn`t delve deep into all of the 'relationship' stuff between JfK and Jackie and Robert and his wife. It kept to a storyline and kept to the topic of the movie. There were a few very brief moments and that was it. I`m still excited about seeing the movie (Pearl Harbor), but perhaps a little less so now. I`ll be seeing it this coming weekend. Shall keep an open mind and post my review afterwards.

Whatever you may think of love stories in historical disastor films, I'll say this, Titanic made it WORK. Despite frequent critisizm, there is a reason Titanic won an Oscar for best picture beyond its rampant popularity with teenage girls.

Pearl Harbor has not ONE OUNCE of that, despite its desperate and blatant attempts to rip Titanic off.

Actually, Titanic didn't work for me in terms of plot or characters or romance - more than Pearl Harbor, but that's really not all that much.

I find that it is successful as a production that is so incredibly lavish and well-envisioned that Cameron's directorial efforts manage to conceal the blandness of the screenplay.

I personally really liked the movie. And for those of you who didn't like the love story that was thrown (which is rather predictable), how would you make it a movie without it??? Have a bunch of war planners sit around and argue and plan and finally attack??? Sounds boring except for the end, which we lose anyways. I thought it was a great movie, except for the part where my friend attempted to give me a few Snowcaps and ended up missing my hand for the most part. But, anyways, if you haven't seen try it.

So what are you saying? Its no longer possible to make an interesting movie without throwing in a love story? BAH!

There are a million different ways it could have been done. Just look at Saving Private Ryan. No love story there.

And if you are GOING to throw in a love story, at least make it entwined with the battle. In PH, the battle is just a backdrop for the love story, and really doesn't actually impact the love story at all. In Titanic, at least the sinking of the ship had some impact on the characters.

Lawrence of Arabia.

220 minutes long, and not a single speaking female role.

Yet it is, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others who love the art of cinema, the most breathtaking epic ever to hit the screen.

GREAT example Iron. Been talking about this topic on my board and have been racking our brains to think of good films without love stories. That's a big one we mssed.

I was just saying that the way the movie was set up, it would hace been a documentary without the love story. That's just how the story was done.

I finally got round to seeing it. Have to say I prefer "Tora! Tora! Tora!".

The Doolittle Raid bit was interesting though.


Oh, one thing you guys probably didn't know about. The Japanese invaded Malaya in SE Asia several hours before bombing Pearl Harbour.

But since we're on the other side of the Greenwich Meridian, the calendar in these here parts had already turned over to December 8th, while over there in Hawaii it was still December 7th.

So the history books record the invasion of Malaya on the 8th, giving the impression it occurred one day after Pearl harbor.