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Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

List Price: $19.99
Your Price: $14.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What is Pearl Harbor? well one of the greatest movies of all
Review: Pearl Harbor Is one of the greatest movies ever made.The action
was outstanding,and the characters are great.Many action scenes are awesome,and look real.I think the fight between the Nazi's
was also great,but the bombing of Pearl Harbor was excelent.
The romance was also good,and the Japanese were something else.
This movie was one of the best movies of all time.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining yet bogus.
Review: Pearl Harbor is just asking for it by promoting itself as an accurate depiction of historical events. Instead it reveals Hollywood at its cynical worst. The laziness of the filmmaking is mind boggling. Utter falsehoods abound.


For example Affleck utters the line "P-40s can't outrun Zeros so don't try". Instead we see close in dogfighting scenes. In truth P-40s COULD and DID outrun Zeros. They could not turn with Zeros which makes the flying scenes utterly bogus. The Japanese did not bomb hospitals and strafe civilian cars on the roads of Hawaii. Jimmy Doolittle never swore. No P-40 pilots were transferred to B-25's to fly to Tokyo with Doolittle. (Note to Buckheimer: Transferring from fighters to bombers is not like changing from driving Chevies to Lexuses.)


We see scenes of Cuba Gooding, Jr. firing at enemy planes flying low so that his bullets that miss the planes actually would have hit the men on other ships and in the water. This didn't happen either.

And then there's other stupid stuff that's simply an example of more laziness. At the end of the flick we are supposed to believe that Rafe has taken his son for a flight in his crop duster, yet it is very obvious that there is only one person in the cockpit of the plane.


These things may seem niggling to some, but they reveal a movie-maker who is lazy and worse of all has nothing but contempt for his audience.
Still, like Armageddon, if you suspend disbelief then the movie is entertaining. If you can't then you're in trouble. The sad things is that all the problems with the movie's accuracy could have easily been handled provided that the people in charge were not so arrogant and lazy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not just another War Film!
Review: I went to see Pearl Harbor at the cinema, and i was blown away, the storyline had me hooked from the minute i saw two little farm boys playing in a make shift plane. It was one of the most emotional three hours of my life, how could you not empathise with these people. Things like that really happened, men really were trapped in ships such as the Arizona and that is why i took such an interest. Maybe it did have something to do with the fact that Josh Hartnett was in it, but it did me the world of good, it made me realsie the importance of innocence, life and to appreciate what i have in life. It's an eye opening experience, but i feel i've learnt something. I watch it at least three times a week, it makes me laugh, makes me cry, but God does it make me glad to be growing up now!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Amazing effects, agonizing screenplay
Review: The visual impact of the attack is without a doubt an amazing achievement, but the storyline of this movie is painful and amateurish. I appreciate the idea of doing an old fashioned movie, but emulating the style of the classic war movie does not mean trudging out every cliche of the genre without some creative revision. If you want to see a quaint revision of the old style war movie, rent Memphis Belle.

This movie is more like the cast of Friends facing the ravages of War. I almost gave up on this movie only 20 minutes into it, but I was able to hold on until the attack on Pearl Harbor. While that scene is clearly stunning, I should have quit before putting in disc 2 (why the director didn't also quit then is a mystery to me).

War movies need a human side, but few movies artfully integrate this with the images of war. Saving Private Ryan, which also stunned audiences with its realism, was far from perfect, the typical Speilberg morality play left the Germans without much of a face and tugged a bit too hard on the hearstrings, but at least the characters came across as more genuine and the story avoided the worst of the soap opera plot devices.

Its a shame this movie couldn't take a simpler approach to examining the war's impact on humanity. As it stands, the movie is a lot like the Titanic epic; it's long on visual detail short on subtle human revelations.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Deep Six Pearl Harbor
Review: For aviation and warbird afficianados, the much-anticipated flying scenes are sorely disappointing. The Battle of Britain is inaccurately depicted. Sorry to say (particularly for the Brits), late model Mark V and IX Spitfires (cannon-armed & 4 blade props!) weren't available for the Battle. It's understandable that a low-budget film would have to show late models for "real" ground & taxiing shots, but the computer-generated aerial battles could have at least been rendered with correct models. Here's another...Ben Affleck is shot down & ditches in the Channel where moments before he was in sight of Beachy Head. Goes MIA for weeks? Rescued by a French boat? How long did you tread water Ben? Maybe the Brits didn't want to rescue this one! Here's my vote for editing award of the movie. Look carefully and you'll see the yellow-nosed Bf109 which waxed Ben's fanny viewed from the rear in a hanger at Pearl Harbor! Reverse lend lease? Do you really think Doolittle would draft 2 single-engine flyboys for the Tokyo raid? Bit of an insult to the B25 crews there. Bottom line if you want the aerial view of the Battle of Britain, rent the movie by same name. For Pearl, go with Tora Tora Tora & Finally 30 Seconds Over Tokyo is still the definitive movie on the Doolittle Raid.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Still a good movie
Review: Even though this movie from the military ( Miller is addressed as a Petty Officer before the attack occured) and historic aspects does not reach a 5 star I still found it very interesting to watch and quite enjoyed it. I have to admit even though I am a woman I was not that enchanted with the lovestory. Yes it was cute, but so predictable and it took up way too much time in the movie that would have been better spent on " real" characters. I am married to the Military and my husband is a Military Pilot, so I got the real thing and maybe know better. If you want a real documentary on the events that took place in Pearl Harbor I recommend the National Geographic Documentary. However I know there are a lot of uneducated people out there that either don't want to or don't care to watch educational shows. For them this might be the perfect movie to learn at least a glimpse of how America entered WWII. Most people have heard the term Pearl Harbor, but never really knew what had happened and how devestating and destructive it was. The things I really liked in the movie are the fantastic cinematographie, fantastic flight scenes and the way the attack itself was portrayed.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Guaranteed to make you barf!
Review: Listen to some of these lines from just the first half hour:

"I got some genuine French champagne, from France, and I thought we could celebrate you being my hero."

Ben - "You are so beautiful it hurts." Kate - "It's your nose that hurts." Ben - "I think it's my heart."

"If I had one more night to live, I'd want to spend it with you."

"It's so cold it goes deep into my bones, but there's one place I can go that's warm and that's to think of you."

"Every day I look at the sunset and try to draw the last ounce of heat from the long day and send it from my heart to yours."

After that last one, I just couldn't take it anymore! Blecchhh!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Why all the negative reviews??
Review: Let me start off by being very honest. I never intended to watch this movie because of all the bad critic reviews and because it starred Ben Affleck (sorry, I'm not a fan of his). Anyway, I went to my father-in-law's one day with my husband and had actually taken some needlework to do while he worked on his computer. My father-in-law offered to let me watch the movie and so as to not hurt his feelings I said sure, I'd watch it. I must tell you I was in for a big surprise. About fifteen minutes into the movie my needwork was forgotten. I was completely absorbed in this movie.

I don't understand all the negative reviews. Come on people, the movie isn't that bad. Everybody compares it to Saving Private Ryan. Newsflash... this isn't Saving Private Ryan, it's Pearl Harbor. I thought this movie was done in an excellent way considering it is about an actual event. The writers and directors stayed with the facts and recreated them well. The attack scene was brilliant. The actors did a great job of portraying their characters. I even liked the love story.

I have purchased the DVD (I seen the VHS version at my father-in-laws). The DVD includes two very great bonuses: The Making of Pearl Harbor and the History Channel's Unsung Heroes. These two bonus features are worth the price of the DVD even if you aren't too crazy about the movie.

To sum it up I thought this was a great movie. I've watched it twice within a month. I'm not a big war movie fan but this movie grabs your attention and won't let go until the end when you are left wanting more. Don't pay attention to the bad reviews, buy it or even rent it yourself and watch it. I think you'll like it. It's a keeper!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A DIFFERENT OPINION
Review: OK, I don't know why everybody is complaining about this movie!I mean, I thought it was good! You guys, this is history;it's what really happened. And the love story. What was so bad about that? It basically made it a movie. I didn't just love this movie because I LOVE Ben Affleck. I do! I love everything about him. I love the way he writes and the way he talks and the way he smiles and everything...ah...... Anyways! OK I just don't know why you people think this is so bad, personaly I really really liked it and I don't know why nobody else feels the same way.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very undercredited war film
Review: Michael Bay made this film having no political or philosophical agenda to bash his audience over the head with. If a film maker wants to please critics, this is a big mistake when making a war picture. If he wants to make a great, classic war picture, then this approach is a stroke of genius.

What person of my generation can honestly say he knew or cared who Jimmy Doolittle was before they saw this film? Not me. Nor did I know the impact of this act of war on the pre-WWII generation.

Micheal Bay's goal obviously was not to present a cold, objective view of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor; had he done so people would probably have complained that he'd ripped off Tora Tora Tora. The goal here is to pay tribute to those who died, and those who emerged as heroes from this History making event.

Critics seem to miss this somehow, or maybe view such a goal as not being worthwhile. I disagree.

Love it or hate it, thanks to Bay and Bruckheimer there is a new generation who will honor the admonition to "Remember Pearl Harbor." That in and of itself is enough to earn this film a five star rating.


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