Pearl Harbor DVD (2 Disc Set) [2001]

As if the plot wasn't thin enough, some clown put Afleck in the lead role. Someone should find Afleck a proper day job - cleaning the heads, dumping the honey wagon or robbing graves. Anything but putting him before a camera and inflicting that flat excuse for characterisation on an unsuspecting public. None of the actors in this film are given a proper role, with the sole exception of Jon Voight. Poor old Dan Ackroyd would have been super as the intelligence officer Ellis Zacharias, even if he is a bit plump for the part. Instead, he plays some ephemeral naval officer championing the defense of Pearl instead of the Philippines or Marianas Islands. Alec Baldwin is slipped in as Jimmy Doolittle, a role that, given the story line, should have been the lead. But then, of course, all that romantic lead-up would have been wasted. As was Baldwin.

It's difficult to understand the intent in making this film. All sense of why the Japanese launched the attack is blithely omitted. Justified or not, we are left with only the "day of infamy" attitude. There's relevance in presenting that, but Japan didn't launch the War of the Pacific on a whim. Their purpose, in their view, was to prevent encirclement. No lessons are to be derived from the story or the events portrayed. There was heroism on both sides, but you'd never glean that from watching this. Yamamoto's American experience and misgivings are overlooked, except for a single line. The Emperor's role, which was significant, is also omitted. The United States was attacked, suffering a terrible blow. Any military historian will explain it was a blessing in disguise as attention was diverted from the ungainly battleships to more flexible carrier flotillas. All this film portrays are implausible characters, a love story so trite as to be nauseating, and a surfeit of violence. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Essentially Pearl Harbor is one of those "give some idiot $100m and order him to produce a film which will cover those costs fourfold" type Hollywood blockbusters. In amongst the special effects (the only redeeming feature of this film) is the "script-by-numbers" love story, revolving around a couple of typical American Joes and some bint of a woman. The acting is lamentable; one can only speculate as to how anyone could allow this to be released on an unsuspecting public.

This is all pretty normal for Tinseltown though. What riles me is how unashamedly jingoistic this film is. Yes, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a tragic event, but then so were the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can bet your life Hollywood'll never make a film about them.
Also, as well as being a devastating blow to the US Navy, Pearl Harbor was deeply embarrassing for America. The completely unnecessary scenes where Tokyo is "revenged bombed" are a none-too-subtle way of saying "Yes, ya hurt us, but we're so great we're gonna open uppa can of whoopass on ya, yeehaw, the USA is so great and we sure paid those Japs back!" It's pathetic. The film title is "Pearl Harbor", not "Pearl Harbor and How We Got Them Back".

The Amazon reviewer did mention this, but there was an awkwardness when dealing with the Japanese. It's no-holds-barred when the English, or the French, or the Russians are concerned, but in the age of political correctness, and with America and Japan such huge economic allies these days it would be distasteful to portray them as, say, the British are portrayed in The Patriot (another astoundingly poor film). The truth was, however, that the Japanese were demonised terribly in America during World War Two. Since there was a large number of German heritage migrants in the country propaganda was more focused on "The Jap". Failing to address this in the movie is yet another example of Hollywood's distorted version of the truth.

Please, if you're even just considering seeing this movie, for the special effects, or the action: leave well alone. Get Rambo 3 out of the video store instead: there are explosions aplenty and at least you can laugh at the acute irony of the ending.