Rating: 
Summary: How many scripts are involved?
Review: At first, I thought this movie was just about the events of Pearl Harbor (like the movie "Tora, Tora, Tora"). Given the length of this movie (about three hours), I see that the movie is more about how the events affected the key players in the film.The attack on Pearl Harbor doesn't happen for quite some time. The focus is on two friends. An argument could be made that the nurse is also part of the focus, but given the childhood background, I would maintain that it is just the two friends. The movie shows us their love of flying and their close friendship. We see them come close, and we see the beginnings of WWII separate them. The attack will bring them together, and we will watch the events after the attack draw them together. To be honest, this movie is a bit too long for a buddy movie. This movie would be more effective if it were divided into a buddy movie, a love story, a movie about Pearl Harbor (I think Cuba Gooding, Jr. should have had more scenes for his character.), and a movie about the bombing of Tokyo. Keeping the movie to any one of this would have provided a very concise story.
Rating: 
Summary: What a junk!
Review: What a waste of dead presidents. Better watch Tora!Tora!Tora! instead of this piece of junk.
Rating:
Summary: worn out love story and sinking boats? -- that's not history
Review: I was really excited for this movie. I love historical movies, and I think they do a lot to help us understand the world, and the events that made it what it is today. Little did I know that this movie would have no more to do with Pearl Harbor than a stage for one of the cheesiest, poorly done love-triangles ever. Unfortunately, I found myself outside the intended audience of this movie. Since I'm not a 14 year-old teeny-bopper, I don't think Josh Hartnett 'is hot' and I don't think he's a good actor. That pretty much sums up the entertainment value of this movie. If you don't think Hartnett or Affleck are hot, don't watch this movie. Not only was this movie lame, it was three hours long. Take out the first 2 1/2 hours and leave the raid at the end and you'd have a fairly decent (though short) movie. By this point of the film, though, I was so bored and irritated that I HOPED they'd both die. I've seen everyone praise the scene with the attack on Pearl Harbor, but I wasn't that impressed. Just because you make a lot of stuff blow up and a lot of people die doesn't mean it's entertaining. I thought we learned that with Titanic. The love story is old and worn-out. The acting is not that great, and some of the lines are downright corny. The historical aspect of this film is nearly non-existent, and even what little exists is grossly inaccurate. So, if you just like to see Josh Hartnett get sweaty, watch this film. Otherwise, stay away from it.
Rating:
Summary: The Extras
Review: are the only reason for buying this "Director's Cut". The movie is still a stinker. "Tora, Tora, Tora" did a much better job. This would've been a much better movie if most of the love story were cut out. And the movie should've ended with the attack. Too much of a bad thing!
Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular Visual Effects, Trite Script!
Review: The problem with attempting to recreate one of the 20th century's most infamous events is that all of us know too much and are much too jaded to relate to the all-too predictable, often trite, and pot-boiling storyline linking the main three characters in this adventure-romance version of the Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy deep harbor facility in Hawaii that became the outbreak of World War Two for Americans. With movies like "In Harms Way" and "Tora, Tora, Tora" already telling the story so well, what could another film offer? While all of the actors do a credible job in delivering their performances, most of it seems like Déjà vu all over again. Once again, this seems more than anything to be due to the fact that we are all quite familiar with the string of events based both on our own educations as well as with altogether too many movies about the Japanese sneak attack. Moreover, the entire attempt to give Ben Affleck's character flying experience by thrusting him into the battle Of Britain as an American "volunteer' is hokey and historically inaccurate. And his disappearance in a flaming wreck off the coast in a dogfight with ME-109s seems most contrived of all. Yet, in spite of all these objections, this movie is well worth watching, not only because it zooms spectacularly past the Pearl Harbor event and covers later action against the Japanese, but also because the special effects are so fabulously accomplished that this version of the actual attack, with its ingenuous interpretation of the attack and battle sequences, is destined to become the definitive interpretation of the historical event. I have watched that portion of the DVD over and over again, for it takes the viewer on a breath-taking excursion into the skies above the islands, and virtually recreates the atmosphere of the battle so vividly that it becomes an unforgettable experience. Amid all the historical controversy regarding whether or not the American command structure had advanced warning and allowed the carnage to take place, the silly romance that plays out its personal history is of little consequence, and the viewer finds it hard to worry too much about the characters amid all this excitement, all these explosions, and all these attack sequences so lavishly and expertly threaded together. This DVD package has a lot of ancillary material that adds to one's understanding of what it is that happened at Pearl Harbor, and what the roles of the flyers, sailors, nurses and others were in coming to terms with what happened that day. This is an interesting and captivating movie event, although I would advise the viewer to concentrate on the visual effects and not got bogged down by the romantic aspects of the movie. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: A $200 million mediocrity...
Review: This disappointing and emotionally bankrupt take on Dec. 7, 1941 pulls out every manipulative trick in the book -- the soldier who comes back from the dead, the love triangle, the hokey ending -- and yet still fails to ultimately engage the viewer. The 40-minute battle scene, seen as the best part of the movie by most reviewers, is undeniably stunning. But for all of the technical prowess and craft displayed, the combat itself takes on a video game-type quality lacking in the visceral emotions that one would expect to experience in a war movie. To me, this was the Disneyfication of Pearl Harbor. One of the most brutal days in American history, and yet most of the blood is not up close and in your face, it's comfortably in the background, perhaps not to offend their apparent target 15-year-old girl Titanic audience. Even the hospital scenes have a gauzy white sheen between us and the wounded, a technique that does not work and further removes us from the action. The scenes of soldies being strafed while swimming in the water could have been far more powerful, but in this rendition the bodies look like ants on the screen. Worse yet, unlike in Titanic, where we came to know the cast and were thus interested in their various fates, the main characters here are removed from the action, until they stage an improbable (but somewhat true to history) aerial defense with two planes. To the viewers, the deaths of thousands of soldiers has about the same impact as a laser rifle striking down a Storm Trooper in Star Wars, because we don't know the soldiers in the thick of the action -- they are merely fodder for the special effects. As far as the ship capsizing scenes, it was extremely Titanic-derivative. The love story, which takes up an astounding 2 hours of the 3-hour epic, is neither horrible nor good; it's simply pedestrian. You don't spend $200 million on a movie for pedestrian, do you? There are plenty of hokey plot developments, oodles of laughable dialogue, and some bad accents thrown in for good measure. The thing about this movie is, despite all of my complaints, I actually came out of the theater thinking that it was pretty good -- a three star flick. But over time, the visual impact of the special effects fades and you are left with disappointment in a war movie that wasn't, a $200 million mediocre piece of schlock that gets its by-the-numbers two stars, but ultimately a missed opportunity for greatness. (I would have loved to see the James Cameron version of P.H.!) By the way, watching this movie on video or DVD will likely lessen the impact even more, since those special effects will be reduced and those ant-soldiers will become dust-mite soldiers. If you are going to watch P.H., at least watch it on the big screen. Last week, I saw Apocalypse Now Redux, which, while it shares a three-hour-plus length, is ten times better than Pearl Harbor. If you want to see what a real war movie looks like, do yourself a favor and watch Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Bad History = Horrible Movie
Review: I had to force myself to watch this movie all the way through. This might be the worst WWII film of all time and I'm including Ronald Regan's "Hellcats of the Navy" in the mix. You'd think it would be hard to screw this up, but somehow they managed to do it. I can't even begin to cover all of the glaring historical inaccuracies of this film. Most of the historical problems are covered in detail by real history buffs on the web. Search around on Yahoo and you'll find dozens of sites poking holes all over this movie. If you think you're seeing the story of Pearl Harbor in this film you are badly and sadly mistaken. I actually found myself laughing hysterically at some of them - - e.g. American P-40 fighters outmaneuvering Japanese Zeros and beating them in a dead climb - - Ben Affleck, purportedly a fighter jock, getting the nod to fly level bombers off the deck of a carrier for the Doolitle raid - - Ben Affleck joining the Brits and flying a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain a YEAR after it was over. It was ridiculous from start to finish. Add to that the fact that Affleck is about as good an actor as a 2x4 piece of pine and you have one crappy movie. Want to see a pretty decent movie about Pearl Harbor? Rent or buy Tora Tora Tora - - the graphics are not up to snuff but they're pretty good and they get the history right. GOD did this movie stink. One redeeming quality . . . this movie at least makes a token effort to tell the story of Dorri Miller (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who manned an AA battery on his own (not his job), shot down at least one Japanese plane and who was the first African American to earn the Navy Cross . . . the Navy's second highest award for valor second only to the Medal of Honor.
Rating: 
Summary: Pearl Harbor ------------- JOSH HARTNETT!!!
Review: Anyone who doesn't like this movie is either crazy or doesn't like Josh Hartnett. I would recomend this movie to people at least the age of tweleve who love tear-jerker movies or just thinks Josh Hartnett is hot.
Rating:
Summary: A Recipe for Turning a Dramatic Historical Event into Fluff
Review: Mix the following ingredients on a wide-screen:
65% predictable, maudlin, melodramatic script.
15% computerized special effects to appeal to male audience members.
10% bad acting using the combined lackluster efforts of Ben Affleck & Josh Hartnett for teenaged girl sex appeal.
5% somewhat flavorful acting from Evelyn Beckinsdale.
3% poetic liscence for historical inaccurracy.
1% presentation of the Japanese enemy.
0.7% predictable, flavorless acting from Alec Baldwin as the Navy pilot commander to Affleck & Hartnett.
0.2% aged Jon Voight playing President Roosevelt.
0.1% political correctness using Cuba Gooding Jr for an African-American Navy cook. Bake for 183 minutes in front of a live audience of bored adults and swooning underaged girls. This recipe changed little from Michael Bay's preceding directorial work of "Armageddon", except that he increased the teenaged girl sex appeal by adding Josh Hartnett to Ben Affleck and he also lengthened the baking time by 40 minutes. Michael Bay had no intention of creating a war film with "Pearl Harbor". Instead, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was merely the backdrop for the primary plot: a ficticious love triangle between Affleck, Hartnett and Beckinsdale. Had this film been less than 2 hours in length, it would have been far more palatable. Few adults can eat marshmellows for three hours. If you want a film that is more substantive and historically accurate, watch "Tora! Tora! Tora!". If you want fluff, watch "Pearl Harbor" instead.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed it
Review: I love Pearl Harbor! I was very happy to get Pearl Harbor Vista Series Director's Cut. It had more blood in some parts of the movie, but over all it was very good. I enjoyed seeing some of the scenes that were deleted from the regular movie. I also like the bonus footage of Ben affleck, Josh Hartnett, and some of the other male actors in boot-camp. If you liked Pearl Harbor then you will enjoy Pearl Harbor Vista Series Director's Cut.
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