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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: Could've been better
Review: Launched to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese bombing of the American Navy, "Pearl Harbor" tries to capitalize on American sentiment by releasing a movie that has more to do with a typical Hollywood love story than a historical film. The visual effects and the recreation of December 7th save this movie from what is otherwise a long drawn out and highly cliched love story (did I mention improbable? -although I'm sure at some point during the war it happened...) Overall, I can't help but feel that Hollywood lunged to capitalize on an American tragedy by commercializing the deaths of Americans (the DVD was released on December 7, 2001) ...enough said.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Pearl Harbour
Review: The Shots of the ocean and ships look as realistic as the day of Infamy was in December 1941. I later found out that it was computer generated and the graphics do make things look realistic as the real day. The movie is 3 hours long and at times it becomes bouring. There are two best friends from childhood days. One goes to war and is presumed dead, the dead hero's girl becomes girlfried of the other. Then suddenly the one presumed dead returns back alive only to find out that his girl has become girlfriend of his best friend. This is adult explicit material fit for Love story like movies rather than Pearl Harbour and too much time being given to it makes it little bouring. The action scenes of attack and response of attack on Tokyo (as they happened in real life) are superb.
When attacking Tokyo, the carriers have to be withing 400 miles from Japan. But they are spotted at 640 miles and the split second decision is taken to attack giving aircrafts a low range on fuel to reach safe landing destination in China. It all happened in real life and we are glad to re live the spirit of brave soilders.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: PEARL HARBOR
Review: My openion about pearl harbor is that is cool because it about war and they are a guy that meat a giral.Then he has to go to war and they thoat that he died and his best frind hooks up with his giral frind.Then he came back he sall them together and they tallck and the they were going back to war and when he was going his frind whent with him so they whent and he got shot and dead .When every body whent home he whent to his x giral frinf.When she had his best frinds babe he tock care of it so that is my openyon.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not Really About the War, but a Wonderful Film
Review: The re-creation of the bombing of Pearl Harbor itself, may be very close to what was actually witnessed, and it was masterfully presented, but this and about two or three other scenes in the movie that account for approximately half of the film, are the only historical depictions of Pearl Horbor. The rest of the story tells a very moving love story.

DOn't get me worng. The love story is actually a very important part of the film. After all, soldiers and families who were present at Pearl Harbor did have any number of love stories. The love story adds the personal aspect of Pearl Harbor, not to mention making the sotry a tear jerker and an emotional rollar coaster ride.

I loved this film, and would recommend it to all, but do keep in mind that it isn't your traditional war movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great war film!
Review: I don't know how so many people can put this film down. It is not "Saving Private Ryan". People time after time give new war films no credit because they are not as gritty as SPR. SPR was a new level of intensity in war films. It is however, unfair for people to expect every war film from now on to be as graphic. I can tell you now, no war film will ever be like SPR. It just won't happen. This film is good. It has elements of classic war films in it because it combines action/combat, and romance. I don't think it was meant to give all the historical details of the attack, like "Tora Tora Tora". It was about how the attack changed the lives of a small group of people on a personal level. It is about the people, similer in theory to "The Deer Hunter". This will someday be a true classic of the war film genre.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Over the top fluff!
Review: Pearl Harbour is a big budget special effects offering from you guessed it Jerry Bruckheimer responsible for such over the top Hollywood films as Armageddon. Micheal Bay director of Bad Boys and The Rock helms this box office terror of a film. Starring one of the worst actors of all time Ben Affleck, the film starts well but ends up in cornville.
What could be a powerful movie after the tragic events that took place in Pearl Harbour about sixty years ago is just an excuse to spend money on high quality effects. Pearl Harbour is a no brainer. Stay away please!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Navy Nurses and Pearl Harbor
Review: As a former Army nurse once stationed at a hospital near Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, I find the movie "Pearl Harbor" (2001), directed by Michael Bay, to be one of the best films depicting the lives of American nurses during war. The Navy Nurses in this World War II movie are seen not only as professional persons carrying out technical skills with compassion and expertise, but also as complete persons with their lives deeply affected by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war. Throughout the movie there are glimpses of nurses performing their many responsibilities. The nurses' lives during and before the war are realistically depicted. During the pre-war times, the nurses in New York are conducting aspects of the physical exam. Once in Honolulu at the military hospital, you find them on a quiet nursing unit. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the main island of Oahu, the nurses are mobilized into setting up emergency surgery and one of the very first emergency triage areas. The beautiful, caring and dedicated nurse heroine, portrayed extremely well by Kate Beckinsale, uses her lipstick to triage the critically ill and those too badly wounded to be saved. The nurses are depicted as skilled, brave, professional and intelligent. Beckinsale's character saves the life of a major with her finger by pressing a bleeding artery during the bombing, and because of this heroism is able to obtain information about the two men she loves who are engaged in the Doolittle Raid in Japan. No one is spared from the ravages of war. One of the nurses is killed during the bombing. As the Japanese admiral stated early in the movie, a brilliant man figures out how to resolve conflicts without a horrible war killing so many.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Somebody stop Michael Bay!!!
Review: Oh dear God, where to even begin?? I can deal with Michael Bay's inane movies (The Rock, Bad Boys, Armageddon) if I go in expecting a summertime popcorn movie. Why this man felt he needed to sink his soulless claws into one of the defining moments of the 20th century is beyond me. This movie is so difficult to watch. Yes, the explosions are very pretty, and the aerial photography/computer trickery is impressive. However, all shreds of truth -- historical truth, personal truth, period truth -- have been shucked like an ear of corn. It starts less than 60 seconds into the movie when a beautiful biplane rises gracefully (and in slow motion, of course) in front of a deep red sun with the tagline, "Tennessee, 1923". Although I suspect they did have airplanes somewhere in Tennessee in 1923, they certainly didn't have this one. It wasn't manufactured until almost ten years later. This minor inaccuracy is only a shadow of things to come. The biggest gaffe in this movie, and indeed in any movie I've seen in recent years, is when Ben Affleck's "character" -- a soap-opera/romance novel hero in every way, even down to the laughable name of "Rafe McCawley" -- embarks on his trip from New York to England to be a fighter pilot -- ON A TRAIN!!! How this got past the editors of this movie remains a mystery, but clearly they should find other more suitable work, as trains have never run between the U.S. and England. If they had diverted the budget allocation from just ONE special effects shot into rewriting the entire script, this movie could have benefitted greatly. There were such regrettable lines as, "I'm not anxious to die, sir, just anxious to matter" and "I'm gonna give Danny my whole heart, but I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a sunset again without thinking of you." (Why? Her only sunset experience was with Danny, not Rafe.) There are about 15 more such corny, lamentable lines, but you can experience those for yourself. Even FDR's famous speech to the Congress has been altered. Why? If they took excerpts from it, that would be understandable, but to flat-out make things up that he never said? Horrible. And the scene with him rising from his wheelchair to teach his cabinet members a lesson about what can and cannot be done was just too cheesy and absurd for words. Then there's the complete suspension of physical truth in Rafe and Danny zipping back and forth across Oahu during the attack (which lasted only 2/3rds as long in real life as this movie lasts) -- our heroes drive to one airfield, then drive to another, fly around there shooting up everything in sight, then fly to Battleship Row to "take care of business" or something ridiculous that Ben Affleck is forced to say, then immediately back to the second airfield, then to the hospital to give blood, then right back to Pearl Harbor to assist in the efforts to save the men trapped in the Oklahoma and Arizona, then back to the hospital... get the point? They're amazing guys. How will the nurse ever choose between them??? Then they're immediately tapped by Lt. Col. James Dolittle for a super-secret raid on Tokyo. Never mind that he has crack pilots of his own. Never mind that flying a P-40 fighter is completely different than flying a B-25 bomber. These are just trivialities! I probably can't blast this movie any more harshly than critics did when it arrived in theaters, but I'll say this much: The biggest insult is the title of the movie itself. It should be called something having to do with the actual storyline, like "Two Guys and a Girl" or "Life's Loves Lost" or something. The attack on Pearl Harbor is just an inconvenient intrusion into a perfectly sappy, contrived love triangle. No relevant or historically accurate background information is given about the Japanese attack, nor the Sino-Japanese war already underway in China. The target audience for this movie is clearly adolescent girls (hence the utter lack of any realistic war scenes) who have only a vague, passing acquaintance with that little thing called World War II. This movie is shameful. It's bloated, bombastic fluff, meant to touch on the fringes of light entertainment and have a big box office. While this type of treatment is suitable and acceptable for large rocks hurtling towards Earth, it's wholly despicable to use the same formula on a historical event of such magnitude. A full extra star for the music, though... Hans Zimmer's score is pretty good, though, and admittedly more moving than the script. I'd never recommend anyone avoid this movie... it's not a total waste of time to watch, but it could have been so, SO much better. The final nail in the coffin of this movie was near the end, an interminable hour AFTER the attack on Pearl Harbor concluded. Feeling, I guess, a need to make the audiences feel like America didn't, in fact, get completely whipped on Dec. 7, 1941, the movie droned on for another four months to encompass the tiny, almost historically insignificant Dolittle Raid (which, true to its namesake, did little), then very hurriedly had our heroes crash land in China and attacked by Japanese with nary an explanation of why Japanese troops would in China to begin with. Remember, this is a Michael Bay film. We can't be bothered with details! There are explosions to film and slow-motion flag-waving shots to show! Then a solemn voice-over intoned that "before the Dolittle Raid, America knew nothing but defeat; after, America knew nothing but victory." I'm pretty sure WWII historians would categorically disagree with this sentiment. I don't know much at all about WWII, but I was under the impression that the Battle of Midway was the big turning point in the Pacific War. The Bay and Bruckheimer duo struck out big time here. This was subject matter that never, never should have fallen into their hands.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: pass the sick bucket
Review: What an unbeleivably stupid film. Full of corny and sentimental american ideas from start to finish.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Romantic, thrilling, and a tear jerker
Review: Pearl Harbor is one of the best films I have seen in a while. Micheal Bay does an excellent job of creating this wonderful masterpiece. A must see for anyone, perfect to watch with your significant other, a little bombing for the guys and a little romance for the girls. A perfect movie for teens especially since Heart throbs Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck star in it. And for all you guys there is Kate Beckinsale, which is a beautiful ray of light in this movie. The story closly follows two young men who are best friends for life, Rafe McCawley (Affleck)and Danny Walker (Hartnett) grew up on a farm together and both became pilots in the U.S. Army. Rafe suddenly finds himself in love with Eveleyn Johnson (Beckinsale) but when Rafe leaves to fight in England he leaves Evelyn missing him. Danny and Evelyn find out that Rafes plane was shot down and he was declared dead. Danny and Evelyn look to each other for comfort but find themselves falling in love, Rafe reappears and the hole thing just takes off. A great movie, But I must warn you that if your a Josh Hartnett fan (like myself bigtime) then the end will be sad but I recommend it anyway!


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