Pearl Harbor

The film's immense cast and crew, headed by director Michael Bay, writer Randall Wallace and stars Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, blend artistry and technology to create a blockbuster entertainment that has passion, valor and tremendous action.

Until a disappointing tailspin in the last hour, Pearl Harbor is the best piece of popular entertainment to come along in years.

With all the obvious work that went into this beautifully detailed, giant-scale movie, and considering the historical importance of the subject matter, was it too much to ask for a trace of intelligence, or maturity, or even insight?

For all its agonizing true-life trappings, has the staying power of a grand-scale video game. Manhattan's sushi bars are in no danger of going dark.

The film has no soul. An epic about this day of infamy should shake you to the core. But the real infamy about Pearl Harbor is that when you exit, you don't feel a thing.

If you decide to hit the concessions stand (where you're bound to have lots of company), I'd suggest going out for popcorn during either the first hour or the third, because the second features some pretty good big-screen effects involving planes, ships, and explosions.

Littered with low points -- lame comedy, dubious history, fumbling drama and a love story so inept as to make a pacifist long for war.

It's my favourite movie of all time. The love story is perfect. I absolutely love this movie. I cry almost everytime I see it near the end.

Pearl Harbor is one of those movies that gets a lot of hate, but honestly, I don’t think it deserves all of it. People go in expecting a war film and get a romance drama instead, which seems to be where most of the criticism comes from. The plot focuses more on a love triangle than the historical attack itself, and while that might not be what everyone wanted, it was clearly the film’s intention. If you can accept that it's a romantic drama set against a war backdrop, rather than a war film with romance sprinkled in, then you might appreciate it for what it is. Michael Bay’s direction is exactly what you’d expect—big, explosive, and visually intense. The action sequences, especially the Pearl Harbor attack, are filmed in his signature style, and they still hold up today. The cinematography is clean, with dramatic wide shots of aerial combat, fiery destruction, and emotional close-ups. Where the film struggles is its pacing. It stretches certain sequences for too long, making it feel uneven at times. The final act, while exciting, feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the movie, almost like it belongs to a different story. Acting-wise, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale do a decent job, but the material they’re working with doesn’t always help them. Their performances are solid but not standout, with some emotional scenes feeling a little forced. The supporting cast, including Cuba Gooding Jr. and Alec Baldwin, adds weight to the film, but the character development is mostly surface-level. The script has its moments but leans into melodrama too often, making some scenes feel more exaggerated than they need to be. That said, Pearl Harbor delivers where it counts in terms of visuals and sound. The action sequences are stunning, with incredible aerial shots, intense battle choreography, and a level of destruction that still holds up today. The sound design adds a layer of realism, making the chaos of war feel immersive. And then there’s Hans Zimmer’s score, which is hands down one of the best aspects of the film. His music elevates the emotions, making the highs more exhilarating and the lows more heartbreaking. If you watch Pearl Harbor for its spectacle, its music, and its grand-scale drama, there’s a lot to enjoy.

I loved the first part of this movie but after that first big moment the movie just fell off and never picked up again.

As a fan ofsome of bay’s work I must admit how dissapointing his first attempt at serious drama was there is so many cringe worthy scenes along with the fact that the charachters especially the fictional ones are so hollow you don’t feel interest or excitement in them it’s like bay was lazy while filming and that he woke up dead and not ready the only effort he puts is with filming the battle scenes which is the only thing exciting about this snooze fest and what’s most dissapointing is this film haas the look of an Oscar worthy drama epic but fails to reach its target and the fact this barely has the visual looks or trademark nor tone of a bay film you barely feel and easily forget that he made this what were you thinking man was this some passion project because it failed to deliver

The Second World War is undoubtedly the conflict that cinema most portrayed. The movie list is almost inexhaustible but the good movies list is much smaller, and I don't know if "Pearl Harbor" can enter that list. Addressing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the main American military port in the Pacific at the time, the film has huge cons. Michael Bay tried to focus on realism, historical accuracy, romance (the lead story is a love triangle, in which two childhood friends engage the same girl) and special effects, trying to do something different and better than it's direct competitors, with whom it would inevitably be compared (for example, the enshrined "Tora Tora Tora" or the more recent "Saving Private Ryan"). But despite all the hard work, the film exaggerates so much in everything that has lost quality. For example, the love story that links all events (ranging from the Battle of Britain to the Doolittle Raid) is so sappy and cliched that it seems to have been copied from a cheap novel or a soap opera. The film is so sugary that it was even compared to "Titanic" because of that. To make things worse, the characters are so poorly constructed that the audience never really cares about them. What interest does it have if that girl dates one of those guys, the two, or goes to a convent? Although they gained notoriety with this film, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale were not able to shine at all and I think they will not carry good memories of this film. Other problems in the script are the "black-and-white" perspective of war and world, and the inability to portray facts outside the "canonical version" of the story: Americans are the good guys, who were quiet in their corner, **** are the bad guys who treacherously attacked that little Hawaiian paradise. Although the film shows that there was an imminent danger of an attack and that statement was discredited, it never shows the great interest that the US (and Roosevelt) really had in being attacked, in order to finally be able to fully justify the entering into a war that would make economy (still trying to get back up from the 1929 crash) make a lot of money. We know that there are even indications that the US provoked Japan in order to be attacked. The film ignores all this, preferring to portray American heroism, but historical accuracy shouldn't be limited to the choice of an airplane or paint for a ship, but must also (and mainly) be used in the way the story is told to the public. That didn't happen here. If the script is bad and very fragile, the film improves when we observe the technical questions. The special effects are good, the state of the art when the film was released, but they end up catching your attention so grandly that you stop believing what you see. You don't feel the danger, you know they will survive by a hair, threading the plane through a hole in a needle or by some other unbelievable way. Then you just watch and expect them to finish playing with the planes and blow things up. The soundtrack is forgettable, and the best are in fact a few hits from the Forties that were introduced in the film.