Pearl Harbor (2001)
Michael Bay
USA
180 mins, color, English and some Japanese (English subtitles)
This is not a film about Pearl Harbor, it is not even a film about the war. It is a film about that Xerox-copy of Nicole Kidman zigzagging between two All-American farmers cum fly jocks. It is so mawkishly sentimental, that the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it finally came, woke me up and kept me awake for 5 minutes. Bland heroics, unimpressive special effects, stupid love stories, and enough bad writing and directing to make Ed Wood weep with envy. I am not going to summarize plot because every review of the film out there does it, but here are my $.02 about the proceedings.
It's not like the approach hadn't been done before. TITANIC put the love story against the backdrop of disaster known to strike. For some odd reason, the sentimental crap worked and I almost cared when Leo drowned. The chemistry in PEARL HARBOR is nil. Yeah, maybe starry-eyed teens will flock to see Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett go buddy-buddy in a very red-blooded and oddly homoerotic sort of way (I just HAD to use that word). I, for one, did not object to Kate Beckinsdale at all. But the three together? Miserable failure. Beckinsdale delivers timeless lines without a hint of irony, and we're supposed to take them in with no complaint? "I'm gonna give Danny my whole heart, but I don't think I'll ever look at another sunset without thinking of you." Ouch! Fire the writer. (The special effects in TITANIC were also better, and we see many of them copied here.) Not to mention the vision of the girl's face floating whilst one is sinking ("borrowed" from that other howler, THE PERFECT STORM). Enough piling shit on Michael Bay although there is much more where that came from (e.g. What's up with the BLAIR WITCH camera shake? Get a goddamn tripod! This thing has never looked realistic, it just makes my head hurt. Or what's up with jelly on the lens? Wipe it out, we get the horror anyway.)
Back to piling shit on Randall Wallace, the script guy who should have been ashamed to use his real name for penning this crap. Can anything in this story be more banal? No. Character development is nil. Every "person" is a cliché (some would call it a caricature) and whoever someone was, that they remain. Sometimes it is useful to have characters who serve as a metaphor, or a symbol, but put together enough one-dimensional crap and you get about as much realism as the Japanese raiding Pearl Harbor with paper cranes.
What have we learned from PEARL HARBOR? Human relationships: it takes on average 10 seconds to fall deeply and forever in love; it takes another 1 minute to forget about it; it then takes almost 3 minutes to remember again, but this time for no purpose. The more often you repeat "You are so beautiful, it hurts," the less likely you are to get laid (which is why it hurts). However, putting your best friend's girl in a plane is 100% guarantee you would get some action on your first date. Also, mending fences with said friend takes two sucker punches and sleeping it off in a convertible. With relationships as easy as these, I wonder why there are so many divorces.
The Japanese. These guys apparently had a penchant for holding speeches in full view of their national flag. There were more flags with the rising sun than American flags in this film, a really (really) bizarre thing for a US film. There was much multicultural understanding, and the US soldiers, upon being treacherously sneaked upon and demolished, content themselves with words like "Jap suckers" (I hear even these are edited out for the Japanese and German ?? markets). It was funny to hear utter bullshit from admiral Yamamoto. Man, the Japanese never seem to have enjoyed their success, there's nary a celebration of what surely was a stunning victory. It seems the foreboding about the eventual fate and the political correctness had a strong grip on that melancholy nation. Also, according to Mr. Bay, Doolittle's Tokyo raiders bombed a geisha district.
History. So the Japanese attacked the US because of running short on oil. Given the scope of the event and its importance for WWII, one would have hoped to hear more about the reasoning of their top-brass, who seem to have spent more time playing with toy ships than thinking about the consequences. For some reason (perhaps because hindsight is 20/20), many ponder their stupidity, forgetting that the same sort of tactics worked fine for Japan in two previous wars: a devastating surprise attack and then the opponent backs down. After all, all the Empire wanted was to conquer Asia, not the US. They did miscalculate because the US was looking for an excuse to get into the war. If FDR hadn't been, maybe the raid would have achieved its strategic purpose, and not remained only a tactical success.
Blacks in the navy. What, the fuck, was that all about? I mean, sure, Doris Miller was the first black to get the medal, but was the film about that? Was Pearl Harbor about that? Was World War II about that? I think not. Yet, we get a full-screen dramatic shot with voice over narration.
RAF. The comment of British officer, "If all Americans are like you, then God help the Germans" would have gotten a laugh out of me if it weren't so pathetically insipid and offensive. I guess the RAF fighters counted for little in the Battle of Britain. Thank God for all the Americans who saved Europe from the Nazis.
Enough with the rant. There really isn't anything good about the film. Skip it. This is so bad, it's not even propaganda. Unless it's for morons. Did I mention it was unforgivably long?
June 14, 2001. BLS