Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Entertaining ;0)
Review: Pearl Harbor was GREAT! It is now my favorite movie. I was kind of bummed about the ending because I am a big fan of Josh Hartnett. I would recommend this movie to anyone that is looking for a romantic tragedy. But, if you are looking for a straight up Pearl Harbor documentary, forget it. You probably won't like it. But, I am sure all of the girls will fall in love with Josh Hartnett as did I when I first saw him in Halloween: H2O.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad, really really bad.
Review: Okay folks we have a winner for the most dissapointing film of all time. This is beyond bad, In fact, I was more entertained watching Battlefield Earth! No matter what I write here this movie will get globs of cash, go to the academy awards, win dozens of awards and become an instant classic. I was so excited when I puchased my ticket at 11:00 in the morning, going in and waiting a half hour and anxiously watching the exciting previews. (Man,Jurrasic Park III looks cool) and I anxiously watched as the title "Pearl Harbor" appeared on screen. Three hours later I trudged out of the theater, disgusted and angry beyond belief. The previews for this film were well done and made the film look 10 times more exciting then it really is. Instead of a smash bang, action flick with lots of explosions, sinking ships and heroic tributes we have a very bad, very boring love film that deserves to be obliterated. In fact here is the basic plot of what happens. Love,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,short 5 minute plane fight,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,love,Really short and unsatisfying 30 minute attack sequence, love,love,love,love,dollite raid,love,love,love,end. Believe it or not, that is all this film has to offer in the course of 3 hours. There is enough romance in this film for 10 movies, the characters will leave their lover for 2 minutes and then meet and make love again and again for over 1 hour. The attack sequence itself is the biggest ripoff of all. Remember that really cool sequence in the previews where the camera is behind the bomb as it falls twords the Arizona? That is a big ripoff. Wee, we get to see a small boom and the bow go up, wee,yay. The special effects are OK but this is really bad, it just dosent capture you like the fantastic Titanic did. Even when men die just inches from the surface trapped in the upside down battleship its very bad. There is however 1 spark of light. The best sequence in the entire movie is whent the Oklahoma flips over, now that is good stuff! The acting is very boring and bad. The best actor in the entire film is a little doggie who rolls a ball around when the bombs start falling, the second best actor is another dog, who heroically leaps out of his dead owners arms and swims to saftey. The best human actor is a priest who gives last rights and comforts a dying man. Overall this just dosent add up. My advice is to wait untill it comes out and speed through 90 minutes of film for the mediocre attack. Otherwise ignore it like the plauge, or go see Tora,Tora,Tora! At least it dosent have a obscene love story.The Good: The Oklahoma capsizeing sequence, the 2 dogs and the priests acting The bad: little carachter development And the ugly: Everything else, the bad attack, the acting, everything
Rating: 
Summary: Pearl Harbor MOVIE - not a documentary
Review: Almost passed on this movie because of all the negative talk by the critics and reviewers. While the "love" story was a little weak and the "facts" were off the mark, I found the action shots were well worth the cost of admission. It was definately no "Saving Private Ryan" but it is in no way as bad as some have reviewed. If you go to the movies to be entertained - don't miss it. If you go to the movies just to rip it apart - go see it - you like the other negative reviewers will have something to comment about. In other words - just go see it and decide for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor mix of fact and fiction
Review: This movie was everything I thought it would be...and that's not saying much. I predicted every Hollywood gimmick but held off writing a review until I had actually seen the movie. It's not that the acting was bad; I actually like Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale and can accept the fact that this is a love story set against the backdrop of Pearl Harbor. But it would have been so easy to make the "non-fiction" parts of the story factually accurate but that was not the case. Once the two protagonists finally got to their P-40's, they subsequently downed 9 Japanese, four of which occurred in a ridiculous head-on game of chicken. This was two more than Taylor and Welch, the real life pilots they were portraying, shot down. There were an incredible number of bombs being dropped on hospitals and civilian areas. According to one source (I think it was Toland) only one bomb was actually dropped on Honolulu. Most of the civilian deaths were from U.S. anti-aircraft shells landing in town. Let's think about this logically. The Japanese sent six aircraft carriers to pound the Pacific fleet so they would be unhindered in their conquest of eastern Asia. Carrier based bombers (Kates and Vals) can only hold one torpedo or two 250kg bombs and your mission, if you are a Japanese pilot, is to destroy anything that can be used against your army or navy. Are you really going to waste your precious ordinance on a few fleeing nurses or a base hospital? Then there was the Oklahoma. This movie prop was so obviously on hydraulics as it slowly capsized at a constant rate. In reality, once a ship's center of gravity shifts past the critical point, it capsizes relatively rapidly. Also, in the movie, the Oklahoma is shown capsized 180 degrees with both propellers exposed. In fact, the Oklahoma capsized to about 140-150 degrees exposing only the starboard propeller. Finally, the aerial sequences were simply awful. Exciting, but completely Hollywood. Pilots might be brave but they aren't stupid. They don't weave in between the masts of closely moored battleships or follow 20' behind burning Me-109's. Rent the 'Battle of Britain', which makes generous use of actually wartime footage, for a more accurate portrayal of aerial combat. If you are unburdened by facts and a desire for accuracy, I suppose 'Pearl Harbor' was not a bad movie. But 'Tora,Tora,Tora' is so much better I fail to see the point of this new release other than making more money for Hollywood.
Rating:
Summary: Disgusting
Review: This movie goes beyond disappointing, and is downright disgusting. A friend of mine who was a history major laughed all the way through it. It tried to show the Japanese as the "honorable enemy" who regretted their attack, but thought it was necessary. Ha! The movie did not show all the motivation behind everything. It showed that the US intended to block oil shipments, but not why. The US did this because Japan had invaded China (which was apparent at the end of the movie, but the link wasn't made clear). Does anyone really think the Japanese didn't want this attack? If they wanted a fight, why not declare war, or better yet, use diplomacy to discuss the matter? It was a low-life dirty attack, and the writer should be fined for presenting such a ridiculously "politically correct" joke such as this. Oh, but the hour-long massacre of men, women, and children had great special effects.
Rating:
Summary: A PC Whimped Out Version of What Truly Took Place
Review: I was very excited to see this movie. I was ignoring all the critics because they are usually wrong anyway, but they were dead on this time. I feel completely cheated because the previews showed all war and gave no indication about it being a 2 hour and 45 minute love story. I know people will say it was just a movie, but could the love triangle be more overdramatic and corny? The facts of the war were so far from the truth. Japan's role in the movie was completely softend. When the war was finally shown, the makers did a miserable job of bringing out the action. The scene in the rice fields could have been one of the best in the movie, but it looked very unrealistic. If Michael Bay had put half of the effort into the real parts of the war as he did the love story, this movie would have been a 5 star knockout. I gave this movie 1 star is for the excellent job done by Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Jon Voight. The parts they played were acted very well and were actually believeable. I look forward to seeing a movie about what went on behind the scences at Peral Harbor and not Titanic 3.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointing...
Review: The trailer for this movie looked *so* promising, but - alas! - about 85% of this painfully long feature was nothing but over-glitzed hype. ..flashy entertainment, with a disapointing lack of substance. The characters were poorly developed, composed only of stereotyped cliche (i.e., the hunky American patriot, the borne-of-a-poor-background unsung black hero, the starry-eyed, recently-engaged blonde whose fixation on the seemingly-bright future was a blatant cinema death wish), and whose 2-dimensional introductions didn't allow the audience much room for tears when disaster finally struck. The plot was nauseatingly bland, utterly predictable, and lacking of any creativity whatsoever; definitely a pity, given the tremendous amount of potential in this movie. There was *so* much that the screenwriter could have accomplished with the idea, but originality was forsaken in favor of a technicolor ego-trip. Blagh. The only mildly redeeming aspect of this movie was the occasionally spectacular special effects, but a movie can't survive on eye candy alone. Don't get me wrong. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a heart-wrenching tragedy. At more than one point during the movie, I tuned out the nauseating melodrama on screen to reflect on the fact that, God, this was a real incident that many, many people had to live through. *That* bought me to tears. The movie, however, failed to evoke a single emotion outside of boredom. My recommendation? Realize that the box office hype is due to "Pearl Harbor" being billed as the next "Titanic" (little comparison, in truth) and patiently await for it's video release.
Rating:
Summary: Pearl Harbor
Review: I thought this was the best movie I'd ever seen until I read the reviews. Then I relised when do reviewers ever like the same movies I do. This movie is a real good movie if you stop trying to pick apart every little thing that you think is wrong whith it. Actually I'm glad I'm not a reviewer because while I'm laughing, crying , or basicly just enjoying the movie they're probally trying to think of acute way to tell you how sappy it is.
Rating:
Summary: A Great War/Romance Movie
Review: A couple of my friends invited me to go for a movie and the choice fell on 'Pearl Harbor'. I was reluctant and was in no mood to spend the evening with a war movie. And as it began I was disappointed and bored by the oft-repeated theme of a love triangle. But soon the war took over the screen and it was delightfully real and profoundly moving. The gross realities of world war II Pearl Harbor unfolded before us. The brutality and the terrible loss of lives involved were depicted with necessary detail. It provided a history lesson which the American youth should know. I was happy that I went. And the gruesome war scenes got stuck in my memory. Indeed it is a worthwhile movie comparable only to 'The Titanic'.
Rating:
Summary: Too romantic but not a bomb.
Review: Any serious movies these days about WWII gets at least three stars right from the get go in my book. They are just that much better with the special effects and current film technology. Having said that, Disney fought hard not to come off too PC. There was entirely too much romance and focus on women. Come on this is a war movie and everyone knows there is always romance between men and women all the time. The Doolittle Raid seemed like it was pasted on the end of the movie as an afterthought. Overall 4 stars for the battle scenes, the attempt, and WWII is my favorite era.
|
