Movie Review

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Pearl Harbor

Awkward and Long, But Enjoyable 
Epic History-Fable

Saw it: Friday, May 25, 2001
Reviewed: Saturday, May 26, 2001, By: Jeremy Farrance
IMDb: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0213149

This movie borrows heavily from Titanic in my opinion.  Different story, but generally, you can walk away with the feeling that this movie wouldn't exist without Titanic to pave the way for it - to establish (re-establish?) the genre.  I liked it a lot (Titanic was a lot better though).  The visuals were incredible, the music was gorgeous, and the story played with your emotions with reasonable respect (while riding them up and down like a roller coaster of course).  The love story and heartbreak were very well done! 

I have complaints that I can't help talking about.  The early scenes in the movie were badly acted to the point of embarrassing.  Perhaps they were too contrived to even be believable, but we go to movies expecting to be in a state of belief.  Some people in the audience actually laughed out loud during a couple of these early scenes.  These were character establishing scenes, but they just sucked (yes, I said "sucked" and I meant it!).  If they reshot some of those scenes a few times, I find it hard to believe that chance and circumstance could not have brought about better acting.  I really hate it when there is a level of awkward stupidity delivered on screen, and this was glaring (at me).  Luckily these scenes were soon behind us (23 years to be exact) and the real story began to unfold.  The rest of the acting in the movie was actually very good.  There were even some bad lines delivered with great depth, passion and believability.  I was a little worried about Ben Affleck after seeing him in Bounce, but he had some impressive moments in Pearl Harbor and overall did an excellent leading-man job.

And that is all I have to say about that...  What do you think?

JRF's Synopsis of Pearl Harbor (2001)

Did I like it?  Yes
Does it qualify as "classic"?  No  
Do I want to see it again in the theater?  Yes
Worth seeing on the big screen?  Yes
Do I want to own the DVD?  Maybe, depends on the extras
Should their be a sequel?  No

Final Thought?  I am "troubled" by the fact that (the director) Michael Bay gets to make films on this amazing scale, yet he is fully capable of leaving bad acting on screen.  You would think someone would have mentioned it to him along the film-making way...