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Pearl Harbor (Vista Series Director's Cut)

Pearl Harbor (Vista Series Director's Cut)

List Price: $39.99
Your Price: $35.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Weak
Review: Once again, Hollywood has taken a day of importance and trashed it. The love story lasts the first hour of the movie. During that time there is no action.

The action scene for 45 minutes is alright. Theres few people with blood on them. The bombs look alright but seem to fall under the category of mediocre. Everything looks shameful. The only tragic thing is the music, which is depressing. They didn't show the real way it happened. It was violent and brutal.

The real thing that got to me was the way they tried to make everything dramatic. Cuba shoots down a plane. He cheers wildly. Theres still 137 other planes dude. Then the boys get their planes and shoot down 7 japanese planes. Are we suppose to be impressed? It took them 30 minutes just to get in the air. Pearl Harbor is a day of rememberance. I guess the battle scenes are okay. The problem is the love story.

3 hour movie. 2 hours are love story. 2 hours. 2 hours. 2 hours. Say that to yourself. This is Pearl Harbor, not love connection. I don't care if two guys love the same girl, find a different movie to put that garbage in. Pearl Harbor is about the men who died in their boats, not how a guy and a girl smooched. Save your money. The worst is the ending. Instead of actually showing you what happens they flash an American flag and a dude talks. Then they proceed into another overly-dramatic segment where we see a girl narrarate the story. It wasn't moving at all. 0 stars. O im sorry, due to Amazon I must at least give it 1.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Pearl Harbor
Review: This epic movie tried to appeal to everyone bycombining a few genres. There's a big romantic triangle between very ättractive"stars (to appeal to girls & women), a lot of actions & special effects (to appeal to the guys), and a lot of history, inaccurate as it might be (so the movie would seem more 'serious').

But the point was completely missed. Many people had to sit through a lot of romantic comedy & drama scenes to finally get to the action / history parts, while those contained very little romantic sentimentality. And the 3 parts are as bland, standard and boring as they could get.

As for the cast: I've seen Josh Hartnett in much better parts than this. Ben Affleck's choice to get this part was obvious, since he was seeminglybtrying to build a reputation as an action figure. Both have a horribly fake southern accent. It's hard for me to understand why good actors such as Dan Ackroyd or Kate Beckinsale were participating in this hhorribly bland movie, but at least they added some class to it (and at least the world was finally exposed at such a large scale to the excellent Kate Bekinsale).

The special effects were probably amazing to watch at a cinema, but are far less impressive on a normal TV screen.

My reccomndation? If you're addicted to romantic fluff or action movies in whatever form they might take, rent this DVD before buying it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT MOVIE!! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!
Review: I was expecting this to be a not so good film due to some of the reviews. It turns out that I really enjoyed the story & the visual effects were awesome. I think the love story gave it a more in depth to people that lived during the pearl harbor tradgedy. Michael Bay did a great job. I think he is one one of the better directors. He also made The Rock & Bad Boys 1 & 2. GREAT MOVIE!! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: stay away
Review: Since i'm from Greece and i don't speak English very well it will take me several hours to write a full review. So all in all:One of the most awful "war" movies i 've ever seen. A stupid love history with a bit (just a bit) of battle and history for background.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pearl Harbor's reach for "epic" status sinks...it stinks!
Review: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has made some very good films in his career, including the powerful Black Hawk Down (which featured Josh Hartnett), and he may have intended 2001's Pearl Harbor to be among his best films. After all, Bruckheimer-produced films seem to be action- and explosion-packed dramas and/or adventure films. Of course, he had such directorial talents as Ridley and Tony Scott to helm such projects as Top Gun and Black Hawk Down, but Michael Bay is not in those brothers' league as a director, and Pearl Harbor fails as both a Titanic-wannabe and a 61st Anniversary tribute to the heroes -- living or dead -- of Dec. 7, 1941.

Not only does Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers) attempt to use every hoary war movie-mixed-with-love story cliche imaginable, inluding the Two Inseparable Childhood Pals Who Fall For the Same Woman plot that pits Ben Affleck and Hartnett in a romantic tug-of-war over Kate Beckinsale, but he also limits the actual centerpiece of the movie -- the attack on Pearl Harbor on that "day of infamy" -- to 40 minutes....and goes on to depict the April 18, 1942 Doolitle Raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities, with Affleck and Hartnett at the controls of a B-25 medium bomber.

I have no quarrel with the idea of framing a standard romance between fictional characters with true historical events. Indeed, James Cameron did a good job with 1997's Titanic, and From Here to Eternity is a fine film set on Oahu during the months leading up to Dec. 7, 1941. And had Bruckheimer, Wallace and Bay even attempted to strive for some modicum of historical accuracy while still focusing on the Affleck-Beckinsale-Hartnett triangle, maybe their movie would not have been as bad as it is.

For instance, the scenes showing Admiral Yamamoto (Mako) and his staff planning their attack look ridiculously as if filmed on a minimalist Kabuki stage. The staff offices and ships' wardrooms where Genda, Fuchida, Watanabe, and Nagumo discussed "Operation Hawaii" are nowhere to be seen in this movie. Instead, the Japanese are often depicted in outdoorsy little parks with Rising Sun banners.

While Affleck and Hartnett's characters are established as first rate pilots, they have been trained to fly single engine fighters. But when the USS Hornet launches the 16 B-25 medium bombers on their daring "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" raid, our two flyboy friends are at the controls of one of these twin-engine planes. Hmmm....Maybe they took a Berlitz Bomber Flying Course in Five Easy Lessons?

Most of the historical characters here are played by talented actors (Jon Voight, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Colm Feore) but their parts are basically glorified cameos. The only historical figure who has more than two lines is James Doolitle, played here by Alec Baldwin, who has no charisma whatsoever left over from his early successes in Beetlejuice and The Hunt for Red October.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is also problematic. Bay has his Industrial Light and Magic CGI Japanese planes attacking the ships almost at random, with torpedo bombers striking the battleships well into the raid. Messrs. Wallace and Bay should go back to college and read Walter Lord's Day of Infamy or Gordon Prange's Dec. 7, 1941, where the authors explain that the torpedo planes were the first to strike. Had they come in willy nilly as in this movie, the smoke from the already bombed ships and airfields would have made their runs nearly impossible.

And, although the battleships recreated here look like their 1941 counterparts, why do those destroyers look suspiciously like 1990s vintage Arleigh Burke class tin cans? Because, by golly, that's what they are! (One of those guided missile destroyers could have shot down most of the first wave of attackers by itself!)

Worse still, Pearl Harbor attempts to wring tears from its audience by showing dead nurses after the raid. Yes, it's a powerful little fiction, but that's what it is, fiction. Dishonest fiction, at that. It was bad enough to have lost 2,403 Americans on that terrible Sunday morning; couldn't the filmmakers avoid the temptation to tweak reality further and not add myths to the Pearl Harbor story? No, not in this sorry movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Peal Harbor
Review: Peal Harbor Is to OOOwy For a war Movie
It's More Love then war. It's Lack Action
All you See of most of the movie Is Useless
Love. Alltrough it had one good Battle sceen
That It it's not enogh. Saving Private Ryan
Is Hardcore But Peal Harbor Not
This is not a hardcore Movie if you
Like action Movies and Hardcore war Movies
Skip this one it's not worth spenading your money
for.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I *Love* It!
Review: This is a great DVD with thrills, *love*, and suspense/drama. I *love* it. Ya, sure, It is sad. But its super anyway! Believe me, if you buy it, you'll be pleased!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: National Lampoon's Un-Official.
Review: Dear Mr. Bruckheimer and Mr. Bay:
After a long time avoiding seeing your movie because all of the bad talking and negative reviews about it, I finally got to see it. Over the years I heard everything, comments like: it is a piece of junk, it stinks, I went blind after leaving the Theatre, and a very long etc, most of them with a very harsh and obscene language, also I heard comments from an small group of people thinking quite the opposite. But now I can tell you that your movie is far WORST than I expected, but to be honest, I didn't expect nothing good from your names, actually every time I hear the words: From producer Jerry Bruckheimer, or From director Michael Bay (or both together, like in this case), I take it as a massive warning for not seeing that movie (the exception was with Black Hawk Down, and because Ridley Scott was directing and co-producing it). I mean, your cinematographic interest have always been (plain and simple), to make a lot of money, to hell with quality, it's all about big bucks. So, why a movie about Pearl Harbor? Well, after the huge success of Titanic, I guess you did the math, and that is: Epic Tragedy + Love Story = $$$. Yeah, not very difficult to guess, and so your strategy was to look for the next Anniversary of some worldwide tragedy, and that was Pearl Harbor. Again, after many year of bad films like: Armageddon, The Rock, Days of Thunder, Bad Boys (Part I and II, and possibly Part III), Pirates of the Caribbean, and a very long etc of sh', Pearl Harbor wasn't going to be the exception.
And so Mr. Bruckheimer, you went with your actual number one puppet Director, the infamous Michael Bay, a man who has brought a lot of money into your pocket. Luckily for him, he thinks in the same stinking way that you do, surely you deserve each other. Yes, lets talk a little bit about Michael Bay's direction (Amazon.com wont let me put in accurate words, what I really think of you as a Director). Your directorial skills are close to none, bad frame composition, bad actor direction, a blown up pace, corny sensitivity, and a careless camera movement to induce in the spectator a Music Video feeling of frenzy, a mere masquerade to distract from your empty vision. But with Pearl Harbor you went even further, the stupid script was deliberated set into screen to plague the images with a sick and cheap nationalistic pride, enhancing it (you thought), with a love triangle that is as vulgar and predictable as George Bush's Iraq War campaign, SHAME ON YOU (Where are the weapons of mass destruction, George?). But what makes this even funnier is that you and Mr. Bruckheimer actually believe that your movie portraits the real events that took place in Pearl Harbor with all the tragic sense and heroic mood, no one can't take this film seriously, cheesy, boring, and completely blown up by your gringo sense of pride, you are not Oliver Stone, and you will never be.
Pearl Harbor lasts at least one unnecessary hour, of course the Japanese version was completely dismissed, here they are just the bad guys, this is how partial and irresponsible your judgment is. Just like every movie that Mr. Bruckheimer has produced in the 90's, Pearl Harbor has an inaccurate photography that makes everything look superficially perfect, the result is again laughable, sum to this the esthetic values of the production design, where the goal was to put everything in front of the camera in a picture perfect style (Kate Beckinsale's hair is always static), something that is particularly sad in the supposedly gruesome attack scenes. And then, the particularly calculated way in which the poor soldiers where depicted aside fallen flags and the corpses of their friends was a mayor breakthrough in cinematographic manipulation, yes one step closer to the bottom. I can't understand how Hans Zimmer accepted to score your picture, and I don't blame him for the poor result, I mean, a good score (mostly), response to a good film, but with this piece of commercial junk, there was no way to inspire the composer.
About the cast, well, Ben Affleck as Captain Rafe McCawley wasn't a mayor disappointment, I expected a bad performance from him, and he did, but from here on, he wont get worst, your mediocre actor direction Mr. Bay is a fine example of what not to do. Josh Harnett as Captain Danny Walker is equally flat, and Kate Beckinsale as the nurse and central piece of the love triangle, really could use some acting lessons, again your directorial Skills Mr. Bay, did some wonders, the supporting cast doesn't even deserve to be mention.
The visual effects are good, but at this point, who cares?
The Vista Series Director's Cut DVD offers a lot of material to the customer, which in this case is even more valuable, the History Channel stuff will make your pocket (Dear Amazon reader), hurt a little less, but do your self a favor and buy Tora, Tora, Tora, Special Edition DVD, you'll later thank me for that. (Yes, the visual and audio transferring of Pearl Harbor is quite good).
At the end, I got it, Pearl Harbor was a satire of the tragic event, but it was sell out mistakenly as an Epic picture, the thing is that as a comedy, it also sucks (Surely, one of the worst films ever made). So, I'll like to say good-bye to you Mr. Bruckheimer and Mr. Bay with some kind words involving the (F) word to both of you and your movie, but again, Amazon.com wont let me say this in a harsh and obscene language. Have a nice day.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Why Disney had to produce "Pearl Harbor"?
Review: Disney has produced this anti-Japan movie per China's request in return for the concession of building Disneyland in Hong Kong.
In order to understand the reason why Disney had to pay such a painful price, you may be aware that Disney produced the movie "Kundun" in 1997 which is chronicling the life of the 14th Dalai Lama from the moment he was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937 to his exile from Tibet in the wake of China's invasion.
As for the movie "Pearl Harbor" itself, this is just a fiction and historically incorrect. Japanese troops never attacked civilians.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Pearl Harbor - 2 hours too long
Review: I bought this DVD from Amazon 2 years ago and finally watched it yesterday.
As a WW2 buff who grew up in England, I enjoy most movies about this era, however this one was mediocre at best.
The RC airplanes getting their wings blown off in every dogfight, crashing into towers and still being decipherable, weird 10 minutes with the English battles, 10 minutes at the end for the Doolittle raid, ridiculous love triangle, was not what I had hoped for.
The actual main battle scene was good, but there were way too many pretty people in this movie to make it real.
And there was plenty of fiction in this one. Let's not use this content for any history books...


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