Pearl Harbor (2006, Blu-ray Disc)

I want to preface this review by saying I knew nothing (read-nothing) about Pearl Harbor. The only thing I knew is that it happened in Hawaii (I didn t even have a clue as to which island it was on) back even before my parents were born.

I know. Don t say it. I m a loser. One of the most famous attacks on the USA and I know nothing about it. Yes, I have a college degree, and yes I took American history. I have no idea why I don t (didn t) know anything about this battle.

So I knew going into the movie Pearl Harbor, I d see some truth and some fiction when telling the story of the attack. I mean, it is Hollywood for goodness sake.

The Product:
Pearl Harbor is a Jerry Bruckheimer production (Coyote Ugly, Gone in 60 Seconds) epic of the summer of 2001. Top billing goes to Ben Affleck (Rafe), but the film is jam packed with a whole mess of Hollywood mega stars. Kate Beckinsale (Evelyn), Alec Baldwin (Doolittle), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Dory Miller), John Voight (F.D. Roosevelt) and Dan Akroyd (Thurman) are some of the more well know actors.

The plot of a love story revolves around the sneak attack (yes, it was a sneak attack although those two words were never mentioned in the movie...Disney s got to be politically correct you know) of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. The story mostly involves three actors. Rafe, Evelyn and Danny. Rafe and Danny are childhood best friends who have always longed to be pilots. They join the military in hopes to serve in battle. Rafe meets Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse, and falls in love. This happens just a few weeks before Rafe volunteers to ship off to England to fight with them against Hitler.

Danny (Josh Hartnett) delivers the life-shattering news that Rafe s plane went down in the ocean and he is perceived dead. Danny and Evelyn are drawn together and eventually fall in love.

Amidst this love triangle is the premeditated attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. The US threatened to discontinue oil supplies to Japan, which left them with only 18 months of reserve. Japan chose to show the US a lesson by taking out their Pacific fleets in Hawaii. Although the attack was a surprise to Pearl Harbor, the White House had an inkling the attack was coming. And decided to do nothing about it. Be it politics or denial.

My Experience:
I love movies that give history of another time. Yeah, I enjoyed Titanic, The Patriot and Gladiator. Each gives the viewer a picture into another time period, and allowing them to step back in into it. Even for a brief moment. That being said, I had a feeling I d like Pearl Harbor, even though I knew nothing about the battle.

I ve read a few movie reviews about Pearl Harbor and the biggest gripes seem to be two things. One the length of the film, and two the love story.

Let s tackle the love story. How else are you going to get chicks to see a war movie if you don t include a couple of hotties and a love story? Come on. It s not that hard to figure out. To get the biggest bang for their buck writers had to make this movie appeal to both sexes. And what better way than to star Ben Affleck (Is he a cutie or what?) and the new guy on the block, Josh Hartnett (He s not so bad to look at either, although I ve never seen him before.)

In typical 1940 s lingo and garb, these two best friends win the hearts of every woman sitting in the theater. They re funny, they re good looking and they re romantic. The perfect combination for most women. However, there are two sides to these guys. Not only do they appeal to the ladies with their wit and baby smooth face, but also they appeal to the guys to. They are the original Top Guns. They fly fast, hard and reckless. Not to mention they suck up to their superiors and get away with it. They have locker room-esque raps with their buddies about how to get a girl into bed (1940 s style). And they re all around likeable fellas.

Now let s move on to the issue of how long this film was. Our movie started at 8:00 p.m. and we left the theater at 11:15 p.m. That s three hours and fifteen minutes long...including the previews (which by the way took at least 25 minutes. But regardless...it s a long movie. They could have cut some scenes to shorten it by at least 45 minutes. The war scene was about twice as long as it should have been. But playing devil s advocate here, I can see why they would want to make it that long. They wanted to show as realistic of a picture as possible. That meant showing not only the actual bombings, but also the aftermath of the attack. The cleaning up of the harbor and the over-crowding in the tiny hospital were necessary to show the view that it s not just about the bombs and guns.

The actual assault scenes were about 40 minutes in length. I was getting pretty tired of the destruction and demolition after the first twenty minutes. The onslaught of gunfire and bombings never even allowed our military to fight back...we never saw it coming.

Now even though it was a long war sequence it was the best darn war scene ever created. The effects and visuals were wonderful.

Now even though the visuals and effects hooked me, the acting, on the other hand, needed some help. What in the heck were they thinking when they cast Dan Ackroyd? He was horrible!

Then there was the secondary plot with Cuba Gooding Jr. What you see in the trailer is pretty much what you get of Cuba during the movie. The commercials make it look like Cuba s going to have a great roll in the movie. Not so. He s seen in a boxing match, getting stitched up by Evelyn after it, doing his duties on ship and then smokin a Jap fighter plane during the attack. That s it...no more no less. I would have liked to see his story line developed more. And heck, I ll go as far as to say, I d even like for him to associate with the main characters.

And what was up with Alec Baldwin? He was just about as bad as Dan Ackroyd was. Playing a military officer with a stick up his pompous derriere is not a fitting roll for Alec Baldwin. Pompous fits him pretty good, but the military officer was a big stretch for him. I also have no idea what the deal was with the Voight/Roosevelt roll either. I throw my hands up to that one. He had this horrible prosthesis of a double chin. The make-up department gets a big fat F from me. It was very distracting. I kept loosing my focus on the movie because I found myself starring at his fake double chin.

Not all the acting is bad though. Kate Beckinsale (talk about a knockout!) was great. She played her roll of a grieving girl back in the states very well. Although, I would have liked her to have more dialogue. They kept her pretty quite for most of the movie. I guess they thought she looked better than she could act. I beg to differ.

Ben Affleck (did I mention he s a hottie?) and Josh Hartnett (not bad either), did some pretty good acting. Affleck did a bang up job of coming back from the dead, even though that plot line was sooooo predictable. And Josh was very convincing in his roll at the end of the movie (yeah, like I m gonna tell you what happens). It brought a tear to my eye. Which doesn t happen very often in the theater.

Ok, I know my epinion is getting just about as long as this darn movie, but I did want to touch on a couple more things...so bare with me.

For a PG-13 movie, I thought production did a great job of covering up the gore of war. You didn t see much bloodshed (even though it was apparent), or morbidity. They did get their point across as to how disastrous and painful the attack was. Bravo to Paramount!

I just didn t get the last 45 minutes of the movie. Plain and simple. I have a feeling they were trying to make another Titanic in regards to the length of the movie, so they threw in the last battle scene over Japan for kicks. They show Affleck and Hartnett training together for a Top Secret assignment and how the first aircraft carrier takes off from an off shore carrier. I guess they also felt they had to give ole Evelyn another heartbreaking by not only taking one of her lovers off to war, but both of them.

Even though I touched on a few what were they thinking? aspects of the movie, all in all I thought it was a great epic film. There were great actors as main characters. There was lots of humor. There was a great 1940 s love story. And there was history coming to life on the big screen. Perfect additions that equal one of this summer s finest films.