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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: 3 stars
Summary: Too long.
Review: This movie had a great plot, directing, and acting. The problem with it was the fact that it was too long! If you took the frist half and shortened it to about 30-45 min. then keep the rest, I would have given it 6 stars!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: YEAH RIGHT! I DID NOT FLOW WITH THIS DUMB MOVIE
Review: I LAUGHED, I CRIED, MY NOSE BLED, AND I HAD A HEADACHE. COME ON THIS MOVIE SUCKED! CAN YOU SPELL BORING! SNORE, SNORE, SNORE! ZZZZZZZ! THIS SPECIAL AFFECTS ARE GOOD, BUT I'D RATHER FLUSH A FISH DOWN THE TOILET! BEN AFFLECK( OK), KATE BECKINSALE ( ALL RIGHT), CUBA GOODING JR. ( OK), AND JOSH HARTNETT ( GET A LIFE!)
THIS MOVIE SUCKED! I HATE THIS WASTE OF FILM! LOSER!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Horrible Disappointment
Review: Pearl Harbor tried so hard to be a monumental film classic along the lines of "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic". It fails horribly. Everybody knows the history of Pearl Harbor, so, no need to get into it. The effects in this film are wonderful, of course, but that's the only thing to reccommend. The actors are pretty good. Josh Hartnett is definitley a big star in the making. Jon Voight, as the President, was wonderful. The movie drags on too long with nothing happening. They want so desperatley to have that special romantic magic llike in "Titanic", but they have no clue on how to go about doing that. It's just bad. The heroes and survivors of Pearl Harbor deserved better than this. It's obvious that they are trying so hard for a memorable film. They fail horribly. It seems that the rave reviews for this movie are by girls who probably just have the hots for Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. A major overblown turkey in every way possible. This movie will make you appreciate "Titanic" even more after seeing this travesty.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not " 'Titanic' meets 'Saving Private Ryan' "
Review: The title goes without saying. You know what the film's about, it's a "dramatization" (so to speak) of one of America's darkest incidents filled with several characters trying to survive it. It's Michael Bay, it's Jerry Bruckheimer, it's got Randall Wallace (the oscar nominated writer who wrote "Braveheart"), and it's got explosions. Surprise surprise when you hear it from the team that brought you "The Rock", and "Armageddon", but what it doesn't have, is heart. "Pearl Harbor" is essentially a summer movie filled with one dimensional characters too dim to shine, and too unfortunate to die. It's a "sweeping" romantic story set against the backdrop of this disastrous incident, with Ben Affleck's Rafe McCawley and Josh Hartnett's Danny Walker as the lovelorn air fighter pilots who fall for beautiful Evelyn (Kate Beckinsdale), a nurse stationed at you know where. The action kicks off when childhood buddies Rafe and Danny are stationed somewhere, Rafe meets Evelyn, you get the idea. But he's headed off to war in England and Danny and Evelyn fall for each other. What you've got, is essentially an hour and a half of a romantic story that certainly could bore the hell out of you. All of that depending on who you are, for a majority of the male audience that attended this film, they found themselves bored by the tried and true material. Anyway, fate intervenes when Rafe comes back, setting up trouble for the three of them, and then of course, the raid on Pearl Harbor begins. In true spectacular fashion, the presence of computer generated imagery isn't here, and instead, it's a realistic depiction of what happened December 7. Soldiers feverishly scramble to get their hands on any form of weaponry they can possess, as japanese fighter pilots bombard them with weapons of destruction. Innocents die by the dozens as Rafe, Danny, Evelyn, and a few other main characters find themselves in a frenzy to fight this sudden battle. It's a disturbing image, as ships sink plunging innocent soldiers to their undeserved doom in the bowels of the ocean floor. Bay shows his trademark love of explosions and he doesn't hold back from displaying them full throttle on screen. It truly is a horrific image when you see the squadron of japanese fighter planes ganging up on Pearl Harbor. You're well aware of the horror that's about to occur, and all you see on screen is an army official playing chess by phone with a friend, completely unaware of what's to come in just a few minutes. All in all, "Pearl Harbor" is not "Titanic", it isn't "Saving Private Ryan". It contains all the intensity that the said films showed, with the horrors of war facing the soldiers and the doomed love affair of the protagonists. It doesn't have the seriousness of those films that it intends to, because it's bathed in a sea of cliches that we've seen in every war film. It's your essential summer movie, because the characters all embody some kind of oddball personality, there's the dumb guy, and the goofy guy. You've seen them in a dozen other films. As for the performances, they speak for themselves. Affleck's southern drawl seems to mysteriously disappear halfway through the film (as many critics noted), and Josh Hartnett seems to have somewhat of a nervous energy when it comes to helping his buddy out. Kate Beckinsdale is credible in her performance as Evelyn, a woman devoted to both men, but for different reasons that can't be revealed now. Probably the insulting form of casting however, is Cuba Gooding Jr. who seems to be the token black character. He's given a handful of scenes that don't lend any real weight to his presence in the film. It's just a matter of irony that his character is non fictional. The same can be said for Tom Sizemore who's just there, but not a big character. Jon Voight appears for a few scenes as FDR, and he does his job well, but don't expect him to be in the film for long. Truthfully, "Pearl Harbor", is something you won't miss if you haven't seen it on the big screen, but it is something you should watch.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good effects, very poor storyline
Review: If you want to really learn about what hapened in Pearl Harbor, then get yourself a copy of "Tora, Tora, Tora." Otherwise, the only thing worth seeing in this movie is the segment dedicated to the actual attack on Pearl Harbor, for its realism and incredible effects. The acting was very poor, and the love story was for the most part pointless. Too bad that Cuba Gooding's role was so minor (a cook from the USS Arizona): he might have been able to save the movie, because Ben Affleck didn't.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Perhaps the Worst War Film Ever
Review: Michael Bay - he doesn't direct a film, he just runs it through the camera.

It's hard to believe that so much money was spent on this film (in production costs and marketing), yet not more than a buck-ninety-five was spent on the script. Was Braveheart a fluke for Randall Wallace and did Mel Gibson bring more to it than we know?

It's one thing to expect the most banal popcorn movies from Bay and Bruckheimer, but this one set the new (low) standard and demonstrated once again the creative bankruptcy that plagues modern Hollywood.

It's nice to know that we can take liberties with history the way Bay did. He appears to be the kind of director who would cast Tara Reid or Shannon Elizabeth as Cleopatra and Freddie Prinz, Jr as Mark Antony.

As a director, he has poor understanding of human relationships onscreen and has effectively failed film drama 101. Do we even care for the characters or the bevy of servicemen who "died"? 'Cause I know I didn't care for not one of the sailors caught on the sinking ships (except for the fact that I was looking for friends who said they were extras in the film)! Does an Oscar-winner like Cube Gooding, Jr. deserve to be reduced a near-silent film role (even though he was barely in the movie, he had the most effective and telling scenes)? As an African-American actor portraying a real hero there was an opportunity to explore part of Pearl Harbor that we never knew, but I guess that would be ground breaking. Is there ever a moment in this film that we don't know what is going to happen next? Is there anything more revealing about those events that wasn't explored in such films as Tora! Tora! Tora! Did the special effects fight sequence have to be so repetitive?

One could go on and on, but that's not the point. A film like this should point viewers in the direction of great cinema that cover the great conflict of the 20th centurty, i.e. The Sand Pebbles, 12 O'clock High, The Dirty Dozen, Stalag 17, Hell In the Pacific to name a few. But this film, much like Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (and upcoming Band of Brothers) ushers in a new type of WWII cinema that isn't as appealing. A type that brackets (and thereby creatively controls) the events of the story with a major, much researched real event. A film like The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare (another underrated gem that needs to be on DVD) fictionalizes pretty much everything except for the fact that it's WWII to great drama effect. How can forget characters like Cassavettes's Franko or Marvin's Major Reisman. There characters didn't fight in any "real" battles, but they sure as hell fought the good fight in a very compelling movie. The same can't be said for the woeful Affleck and the shallow Hartnett (their characters don't even illict memorable names much less performances).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Movie
Review: This movie is the best I have ever watched. It made me laugh it made me cry (pretty much all the way threw the first time i watched). If you are looking for something for everyone to watch Pearl Harbor is that movie. The guys can watch all the special affects and the women can watch the wondrefull love story and no to mention the cute guys (Hartnett and Afflect). This movie is one movie you won't be sad [if you] bought.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Snora, Snora, Snora (or Bora, Bora Bora)
Review: It is too bad this film did not live up to its billing. Too many inaccuracies mar what could have been a great film, given the budget and special effects (which are pretty good). The characters don't develop through the movie and it leaves out why December 7, 1941 was important. And the DVD is a bit expensive given all that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Heartstrings pulled AND history lesson learned
Review: I found Pearl Harbor to be a movie that not only pulled at my heartstrings (a lot, actually) it taught me a lot about the time period and the actual bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a college student who was on vacation in Hawaii when this movie came out, I knew the basic background of Pearl Harbor and what had happened. Seeing the movie in Waikiki, Honolulu, HI made that much more of an impact. I visited Pearl Harbor a day later and was overocome with sorrow just as I had been at the movies. It was unimaginable to me that I could feel this way over a MOVIE but this movie not only told a terrific love story, it gave a very in depth history lesson. There are people out there that think that this movie doesn't cover enough of the actual bombing and doesn't touch on very important details. However, this movie was not made to tell the ENTIRE history of this "Day of Infamy", it was written to tell the general story and tie in a taste of Hollywood. Overall, the movie was great, all-around.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: pearl harbor
Review: best movie of all time,its a classic


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