When I saw the trailers for this film way back in early 2001 I was very excited. Being a WWII history buff I always wanted to see what the modern movie technology could do with the attack on Pearl Harbor. I didn’t believe that they could improve on the 1970 Academy Award winning film Tora, Tora, Tora in terms of story because Hollywood has to be Hollywood. I was hoping that we would see a special effects masterpiece showing the attack on Pearl Harbor with great detail and a story that would show a few of the important people leading up to the attack. What I got was a very good special effects movie with some wonderful moments and a story that was regrettably similar to the movie Titanic.
Capt. Rafe McCawley, played by Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,) and Capt. Danny Walker, played by Josh Hartnett (The Faculty,) are two pilots in the US Army Air Corps trying to prepare for the upcoming war. In the fall of 1941 Rafe volunteers to join the Eagle Squadron, a group of American pilots fighting with the British against the Germans and leaves Danny as he and the rest of their squadron head off to their new base in Hawaii. Rafe is also leaving his newfound girlfriend who is a nurse in the US Army, Evelyn Johnson, played by Kate Beckinsale (Vacancy,) and Rafe asks Danny to look out for her. Just as Danny and Evelyn are getting settled in Hawaii they get word that Rafe is shot down over the English Channel and presumed dead. Danny and Evelyn try to get over their loss together and keep preparing for the future. Meanwhile relations between the United States and Japan begin to fall apart and the Japanese decide that the only way they can continue to dominate the Asian theater is for a quick striking sneak attack against the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor Hawaii.
So I am sure that you noticed that my summary of the movie was about 90% story about our heroes and 10% story about the build up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Well that is what this movie feels like. I do not understand the need to not create a love story but a love triangle in the middle of a movie that is supposed to be about the attack on Pearl Harbor. There is absolutely no need to introduce this to the movie unless the producers were trying to get a Titanic like audience in that without a love story the chances are that most of your movie theaters will be devoid of any ladies in the audience. We don’t need to have love story in a movie that should be celebrating the heroes of that battle. Three years before the release of this film, Stephen Spielberg showed that you can have a great movie that shows the heroism of the military in Saving Private Ryan as long as you have a great story and develop the characters that you focus on. Pearl Harbor does attempt to develop some of its characters but never has you cheering for any of them except for Affleck’s character and because of the stupid love triangle I ended up cheering against both Hartnett’s and Beckinsale’s characters. The love story really did this movie harm in my eyes, even though Kate Beckinsale is absolutely gorgeous.
The story that involved the actual historical narrative leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor was adequate but not great. The movie did show the desire of President Franklin Roosevelt, played by Jon Voight (Glory Road,) to do as much as he legally could to support the war effort in Europe. The movie also showed the US military intelligence codebreakers primarily with the use of the character Captain Thurman, played respectably by Dan Aykroyd (Crossroads.) The one area I felt the story was a little weak was showing the Japanese side of the events leading up to the battle. Mako (Conan the Barbarian,) did an nice job as Admiral Yamamoto trying to show in only a few scenes that even though he was planning the attack that he knew the attack itself wasn’t the best thing to do for his county. One thing I thought the writer did do well was to show the real life Navy Petty Officer Dorris “Dorie” Miller, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. (Selma.) Petty Officer Miller was the first African American to win the Navy Cross for his actions on the USS West Virginia. He helped rescue several injured sailors to reach safety during the attack and did man a 50m caliber machine gun until he ran out of ammo and had to abandon ship. All of these things added to the movie and in some degree made up for the love story.
One last thing I will say about the story that has me a little conflicted is the whole Doolittle Raid added to the final 45 minutes of the film. The reason why I am conflicted is that it is cool to see the raid put to modern film, plus Alec Baldwin (Concussion,) was awesome as the cranky abusive Colonial Doolittle. What I don’t like about it is that because we are in modern day Hollywood and we are dealing with a bunch of Millennials who need safe spaces from things like…words, Pearl Harbor couldn’t have ended on a down note because people wouldn’t like it. So they had to have an ending that was somewhat uplifting. So while it was fun to watch that part of the story it was totally unnecessary to the story.
It sounds like I didn’t like this movie but that is not the case. I enjoyed the movie despite the love story and other minor issues largely because it did fill my desire of having modern special effects show the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a stunning visual feast of destruction for what seems like 45 minutes. I am not sure that is how long it was combined but it gave me everything I wanted. I really enjoyed the dogfighting scenes involving Rafe flying in Europe and then the scenes with Rafe and Danny fighting the Japanese during the attack. Oh and would like to add the Doolittle scenes to my enjoyment as well. While I saw a few inaccuracies in the ships that were bombed at Pearl Harbor and the explosion of the USS Arizona didn’t lift it out of water, like in the movie, I felt for a PG-13 movie, which it should have been an R movie, did a great job of showing the fight scenes somewhat accurately and showed the many heroic acts of the battle. This movie did win an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. It lost the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which I can respect because that movie had better effects.
I would also like to briefly mention that the music in this film was awesome, in particular during the entire attack of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of the Doolittle Raid when the bombers are flying off the aircraft carrier. Hans Zimmer knows how to pluck at my musical emotions and get me worked up and he did once again in this film.
As we celebrate Memorial Day weekend this week and if you are stuck in the house because of bad weather and this movie is on, you can do a lot worse than watching this film. If you want a more accurate portrayal of the events surrounding the attack from both the Japanese and US point of view then I would recommend you watch the movie Tora, Tora, Tora. If you don’t have it, this will do, just ignore the whole love story thing.
My fellow movie review website writer, Benn Farrell, has a small review of the film that you can see here, and he also put it in his Favorite Top 5 U.S. Armed Forces Movies, which you can see here. If you would like to see my Top 5 list please go here.
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