My Pearl Harbor Review (SPOILERS PRESENT)

[Ringneck]

With all my OT politcal rantings I guess I never did give my opinion of this movie.  Here it goes.  

I enjoyed it.  Its not Saving Private Ryan, or Kelly's Heroes, but its not a South Pacific type affair either where WWII is only a back story.   I will have spoilers in here so dont read if you care about that sort of thing.  

It starts out in the mid 20's,  Ben Affleck and his buddy are 8 year olds who love flying, mainly because Affleck's dad is a crop duster pilot and they have access to a derilict aircraft out back of the farm to play in.   Thus when we next run into them they are both Army Air Corps (what became the Air Force after WWII) pilots.  However, Affleck feels he is aging out of it and wants to see combat so he leaves to join the "Eagle Squadron" (American voulenteers who fly with the Brit RAF against the Nazi's).   Before he leaves he meets a woman though......

Here is the "Love Story" part most people dont like.  I would have rather seen more RAF vs. Nazi combat scenes too but they stick in some REALLY hillarious moments and characters during these parts to keep the guys entertained.   Affleck goes to England, while the nurse he is into goes to Pearl Harbor, coincidentally where his best buddy is also now stationed.  

SPOILERS BELOW

Affleck is hsot down while in England.   His best buddy and girlfriend then fall for each other, she getting pregnant.   But then trouble starts when Affleck was mistakenly reported dead, he is very alive and returns, none to happy about the situation.   But Affleck cant stay to mad at his buddy because shortly thereafter the Japanese bomb Pearl.  

CGI has its limitations.   It was VERY cool the things they could do with it.  Very few pre war battle ships still exist and getting them to PH would have been impossible.  Here you get to see a recreated battle ship row with all the early battle wagons lined up.  The odd thing is the destroyers they used were modern ones......   But I'll forgive them.  I think the Pearl Harbor attack scene is nearly the equal of the Omaha Beach scene in SPR.  THE Japanese attack out of no where, and like in real life attack civillian targets, hospitals, and strafe survivors floating in the wreckage.  WHile Pearl Harbor the moive isnt the equal of "Tora Tora Tora", its battle portions get you closer ot what the attack was really like.   a dozen people in the audience I was with, my self included gave out some kind of cheer when ever an ememy plane was shot down--not just to make noise, it was a genuine gut re-action.     Look for a really cool performance by Cuba Gooding Jr.  They show the limited roles blacks could play during the war without dwelling on it, or making every body look lke the KKK.  

During the attack Affleck and buddy get to some aircraft and take some Japanese down with them.  These are really corny dog fight scenes.  But they are 100% exciting.  They are no less un realistic than the tacitcs the soliders in SPR used.  

The next big development in the movie is to big to give away, I'll let you all see the movie for the last 1/3rd.  Really worth the money

Overall, good movie.  The humor kept me going through the slow romance portions, the action pieces are never wanting, and the CGI isnt to bad except for some of the plane fly by scenes and the slowmo bomb drops.   Very accurate when it shows the attack on the battleships... very accurate.  Movie separates Japanese from the the Japanese military/govt.  Although you may want to give the first Mitsubishi (made Japanese warplanes during WWII) you see in the parking lot a good kick on the tires.  The supporting cast was great. Look for Tom Sizemore and hte Glider pilot from SPR to show up.    I have to give it four stars, the same I gave SPR although most of the stars are for how well the special effects brought history to life, rather than story or acting.   Make sure you also see Tora Tora Tora as well before you go.

[peter johnson]

Good review.  I liked "Kelley's Heroes" too:  The only WW2 movie made that used actual German Tiger 1's, and not some modern damn Patton tank painted up with Wehrmacht crosses.

[Chris K.]

In my opinion, PEARL HARBOR went nowhere at all. Not because of historical refferences, but because of the romance angle. PEARL HARBOR runs about three hours long and the first two hours was concentrated on the love interest. The romance angle was dull and slow to the extent that I was hopeing for a Japanese bomber plane to fly in and blow up the romatic interests! And I would have cheered if that happened. And when the Pearl Harbor attack finaly came in it was only about 45 minutes long!

Michael Bay may be good at action, but he is no good at romance stories. Bay seems to feel that if the film concentrates on the romance it will create tension for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, you don't have to take up two hours to create tension! Alfred Hitchcock can create tension in one minute into a film. Hell, he can create tension with no sound at all and it would still work. Plus the hospital sequence was not very gruesome enough to pull me in. Maybe it was because the camera was out of focus so much that I almost could have gone blind when I was squinting my eyes to see clearly. Was Bay trying to do "Art" filmmaking here? If he was, I can safely say that the Spanish, Italian, French, and Japanese filmmakers are better at producing "Art" films than Bay can. But I would have left the hospital scene to Steven Speilberg to work on (and as much as I don't like Speilberg, I feel he could have pulled the scene off better than Bay can). And even though Hitchcock's refference to this film is slightly out-of-context, Bay is neither Hitchcock nor Steven Speilberg for that matter.

Now producer Jerry Bruckheimer is nothing special either. He may put up the funds to make a multi-million dollar extravaganza, but Bruckheimer feels that's the only thing the audience wants is "extravaganza adventure" with very little plot and loop-holed storylines. A film has to have "heart" with a good storyline, smooth action, etc. If you just spend two hours on mere nothing that virtualy go NOWHERE and save the big finalie to the near end, then that just rips off the audience even more than entertaining them. But hey, that's Hollywood!

PEARL HARBOR was just too hyped up and to out of it to be good. Maybe I should have listen to reviews of Roger Ebert when he saw this film. But, we pay our money and we don't get it back like that. What are you going to do?

I feel the best ones to depect Pearl Harbor are TORA! TORA! TORA! (1977) and the Japanese film I BOMBED PEARL HARBOR (1960) to be the best ones that involve the incident of World War II. At least they are played straightforward. I recommend these two over PEARL HARBOR for sure, but these two are just mere recommendations. However, I do remeber one critic who said you cannot compare PEARL HARBOR with TORA! TORA! TORA! like that. Well, how wrong was this guy! Hell, TORA! TORA! TORA! is being recommended more than PEARL HARBOR so I guess that shows how wrong that critic was.

[Ringneck]

I think Chris has some very valid points here.  "Tora Tora Tora"(hence forth just Tora) is the superior movie for learning facts about Pearl Harbor, what led up to it, and just all around a more strait forward war movie.   "Pear Harbor" is set up more like an epic.  I mean, lets face it, Sparticus and Ten Commandments had little to do with the hostorical events that inspired the movie, but relied on elaborate sets, special effects, action, and big name actors to pull them through, much like PH did.  I am already on the look out for "I Bombed Pearl Harbor" Chris, thanks for the heads up.  

I didnt like the romance angle either.  I mean the girl looked great, but it takes more than that for me to hold my attention.  What got me through those parts was the humor, and the frequent insertions of Affleck's escapdes fighting Nazi's over the Channel are what got me through that.  Also enjoy all the neat old cars and buildings in the background.    The romance angle is something we have to live with though because Hollywood thinks that EVERY possible demographic has to be satisfied by EVERY single film.  Just be glad the gay swahili watch makers union isnt stronger or they would have been in it too.  There was a small lawsuit after SPR because more blacks werent represented.  It was pointed out there were no black combat units at D-Day so the group with the lawsuit re-organized and said that black support units that were on the beach should have been emphazized.   Its just a load of crap sometimes.   Rather than pleasing everyone they usually ending up making everyone more upset than if their group hadnt been in the movie at all!    

I dont see the middle as all the romance angle.  Like I said above there is the RAF/Luftwaffe battle scenes, the Japanese fleet moving towards Pearl, the code breakers trying guess where the Japanese are at, ect all kind of get the action seekers through that.  Also, like I said above, I enjoyed the 40's atmosphere they recreated, and just teh hillarous characters like Red the pilot and that slow P-40 mechanic on Sisemore's crew.  

The thing I really liked was the attack segment.   with all its faults and overuse, CGI allowed for the showing of devestation, bloodshed, and carnage you cant really do with models or other kinds of FX.  Its as close as you can get to showing someone "what its like" to be in the middle of all that.   In addition, it showed modern audiences that this was the US being hit, not some French town in SPR or Hiroshima, or Hanoi.    Alot of war movies can tell a good story without the effects, but you just cant do that about the attack on Pearl.   It was to big, to intense and to widespread for that, not like an infantry battle in a deep woods.

Seeing Doolittle's Raid recreated was also something that impressed me.  the second part of that was Hollywoodish, but so are most Hollywood movies.  The least Hollywood war movies are probably the origonal Thin Red Line, and The Story of GI Joe.    

This isnt "Tora!", but it can stand on its own.  Of course seeing it on the big screen made it more impressive, if I see it on video on my 19 inch 1974 vintage color TV here in the living room I might not be so enamored with it.    

PS--Chris, you have a copy of I Bombed Pearl Harbor?  Maybe we can make a swap........


BradLaGrange

[Ringneck]

Pete.  The cool thing abotu Kwelly's heroes is those ARENT actual tigers, but mock ups made off T-34's.  Compare those to the SPR TIger mock ups, and you will see how fantasticly the Kelly's tigers were recreated.  They even used that un even textured/rippled look on the turrets metal!!!!  The only thing that gives them away are the road wheels(which arent to awfully different) and the scale (a real King Tiger is even larger than an M60 tank) when a person is near them.   That key painted on the Tigers turrets I think stands for the 2nd SS Panzer Division  

One erro with the Tigers is how the German tank commander says fuel is leaking all over, and refuses a cigarette because it will catch the tank on fire.   Tigers were disel which means he would have had to have worked hard to get that fuel to ignite.  it was Oddball in the gas powered Sherman that had to worry about the fuel going off.  All US tanks were so flamable that Germans refered to them as Rhonson Lighters(Rhonson predated Zippo) because Shermans were like Rhonson lighters advertized to be "One Strike and They Light!"  

BradLaGrange

[Flangepart]

Glad i checked in. The Tigers in Kelly's Heros (Great wwII Flick), looked so right,i've often had to get books about the Tiger and stare at the screen in admiration. It does bug this armchair general..okey, 2nd looie...that they can't fake better equipment. The German Halftracks were Chech make, and looked perfect. The tactics in Kellys also were easy to follow, and that means a lot. Did you see the Battle of Britten? Great flying and arieal photowork, but stiff upperlip in the character dept. Good small details, like Air Vice Marschal Keith Parks white flight suit, that he wore when inspecting the airfields. Too bad they diden't have the other German planes in this one. Did they have ME110's and such in PH? I do plan to see it, but it may take a while.

[Chris K.]

I saw I BOMBED PEARL HARBOR a long time ago on TV when I was either 11 or 12 years old. It really stunned me and I was suprised that I liked it at that time. Now that I am 17, I have been trying to search for a copy of it and none ever turned up. But, Amazon.com has issued some copies of the film on video and it is still available now. It did recieve a release in the U.S. so the film is dubbed. And as I can recall, their was a love story behind that film as well but it was very interesting. Plus if you like the old Godzilla films, here is some good info for you. The man who was responsible for the impressive effects for the Godzilla films, Eiji Tsuburaya, worked on the fantastic effects for I BOMBED PEARL HARBOR! So you know what to look for in this one as well.

So I BOMBED PEARL HARBOR is available at Amazon.com.

[peter johnson]

Yeah, King Tigers, or Tiger 2s, were a different kettle of fish altogether.  Yes, the key was a 2nd SS insignia -- they ended the war defending Prague.
I had no idea those were T-34s.  I've always thought they were actual Yugoslav-captured Tiger 1s on loan to the film crew.  I'll be danged . . .
Battle of Britain did use real Me-109s and Heinkel 111s.  They got them from the Spanish Air National Guard, who still used them as active-duty craft up until the 1960's.  I've actually been in one of the 1936-built Spanish He-111s, owned and operated by the Texas wing of the Confederate Air Force.  It is like being in a time machine.
Also, on a prior topic, "Welcome to the Paradise" is a good movie with Dennis Quaid on the American internment camps for Americans of Japanese ancestry.

[Ringneck]

Pete.  Those Kelly's heroes tanks were great looking.  So much better than SPR's.   they would try not to show close in shots of people next to the whole Tiger in KH so the improper scale wont be shown.   Compare that to the scene in the ending fight during SPR where about 8 airborne guys climb on the tiny Tiger copy before teh flak gun gets them.    A person was about the same height as the tank its self.  

Although the rest of the movie reeked with unauthenticity and post war stuff, check out the tank battle in Battle of the Bulge.   Chaffe's vs. Patton's.  the tanks are corny but man is seeing all those tanks get in formation and attack worth it.  also neat how they found Savalas a tank off the firing range once his had been hit so he can drive around in his "damaged" tank and make a last stand against the Germans.   An itneresting side note, Savalas was really at the Bulge during WWII and was severly wounded.  

BradLaGrange

[Andrew]

Ringneck said:
"Compare that to the scene in the ending fight during SPR where about 8 airborne guys climb on the tiny Tiger copy before teh flak gun gets them."

Man, I had chalked this up to being a Panther or some other tank like the Panzer IV.  Now I'm going to have to go back and look at it again.

Andrew

[Ringneck]

Andrew.  I that part of SPR just now and I'm pretty sure its a copy of the first Tiger tank.   I'm not as up on my WWII German armor as I am on my WWII GI stuff.   They do a good job, but since it is based off a T-34 the turret is to far forward and the scale is off.   I wonder if they had some old M48's if they would have been able to make something in a better scale.   THe German assault guns that get molotov cocktailed looked good though.  

For a cool tank movie check out "Bridge at Remagen" with George Segal (no David Spade), Ben Gazarra (no Patrick Swayze), and Robert Vaugn(no A-team).  in the begining they have there Chaffe's wound up and boogeying down a road at about 40-50 mph's while firing.   Later they drive through a German town mashing cars thrown in their way as hasty road blocks.   Also you get to see everyone wearing the late war OD "M43" uniforms, which studios usually reserve for early war movies, or ignore all together and use Korean war stuff instead.  

BradLaGrange