When I first heard Touchstone pictures was going to produce a movie called ’’Pearl Harbour, ’’ I was ecstatic and enthusiastic about seeing this movie. It could be ’’Tora, Tora, Tora!’’ all over again, only this time with special effects that would knock people out of their seats.
When I first heard Touchstone pictures was going to get Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer I cringed because I knew any possible attempts at actually telling a worthwhile, thought provoking and emotionally moving story would be thrown out the window asap. I then saw the commercial for this movie about a year ago and my hopes were then lifted again - it looked like this film would just be about Pearl. It looked amazing, the voiceover of the real FDR speech, with the slow moving, tragic music and the glimpses of the finished battle scenes. It looked amazing. But part of me was still apprehensive and hoping I’d be wrong, that this would be a good movie, but in the end I wasn’t wrong.
Although I know this isn’t the best way of reviewing a movie, I’m going to go at it from the point of view of how I would have made this movie. And one question that immediately comes to mind after seeing this film, and that is, what were these filmmakers thinking?
Michael Bay’s ’’Pearl Harbour’’ tries to be a three hour epic film about this tragic event that took place on December 7, 1941 (yes, I think this event could be viewed as a tragedy, with what makes America great, it’s individualism and want to succeed on its own, bringing them down for a few hours to face reality in light of a growing war). To me Pearl Harbour was the turning point of World War 2, as it brought America into the war. If Japan had not attacked Pearl, it would have been much longer before the US entered the war, if not at all. There’s a lot of history here, a lot of very sad history of men who have lost their lives. It’s a subject matter that needs to be dealt with seriously, and with a strong script. And this movie lacks a strong script.
’’Pearl Harbour’’ is so Hollywoodized (which isn’t always a bad thing) that it is actually sickening. The concept of the film itself is somewhat interesting, but it isn’t exploited to its fullest potential. The filmmakers have given us a ’’Titanic’’ style love triangle, and this is both the film’s strength and its mistake. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a film that just looked at ’’Pearl Harbour’’ itself, as an American army base in paradise, where the men train daily and do their regimental work. Show us the characters, their lifestyle and give the audience characters they can care about.
If I had made this film, I would have done it strictly from the point of view of those serving at ’’Pearl Harbour.’’ Where ’’Tora, Tora, Tora!’’ gave us a view of the situation as a whole, on a macro level, I would have gone for the micro level, concentrating on Pearl itself. The filmmakers could have done a lot of research into life on the island and at Pearl at the time, and they could have covered the weeks and days up to the attack. You could have shown how the carrier fleet was moved out of Pearl a few days before the attack. Perhaps the men would have commented on it, why are they moving them all away? Was there a sense of something going on that was unusual? ’’Tora, Tora, Tora!’’ hints at this, with submarine sightings and other strange events, but I would have concentrated solely on these from the point of view from only those at Pearl.
I would have avoided looking at the situation from any other point of view - I would not have gone to Washington, I would not have shown FDR nor would I have shown the Japanese.
I would have crafted a film where the audience becomes a part of Pearl itself, so that when the fateful attack does finally come, you are hit hard and live and die with the characters on the screen. Then you can show the day or two after the attack, again only from the point of view of the people at Pearl itself. The men trapped inside the ships, apparently they tried to get them all out, but they couldn’t. Apparently you could hear for days people stuck and banging to get out. What effect would this horror have on the men there? How do they come to some sort of And that would be it. You could do this in two hours and have a very interesting movie. But instead, too much is thrown into this movie without much fault and it shows.
Now, the movie tries to show this micro level in some respects, with the love triangle and with some characters on the base (one character worth watching is Cuba Gooding Jr, who gives a powerhouse performance in a somewhat cliched role). But the love triangle is so poorly constructed and written that it just doesn’t make sense. The movie is actually rather trite and boring. It holds no weight. Its corny dialogue and setup is enough to make you laugh, and in the end it leaves you giving a damn about what happens to the characters, regardless of the historical significance attached to these events.
After about an hour into the film, the attack happens. This is great - they really did some excellent work portraying the attack, but again, I hate to say this, but nothing’s been done to give us a reason to care about the attack. I felt no real attachment to any of the men who were dying. It was a surreal experience for me. I should have felt as I did when I watched ’’Saving Private Ryan, ’’ but I didn’t.
Then, after the attack, the movie shifts focus away from Pearl to concentrate on the Jimmy Doolittle raids. Why do they do this? The scenes are well done, but isn’t the movie called ’’Pearl Harbour?’’ Why are they leaving what should be the central setting of the film to go to Asia? And the film does so little at giving us any hard facts about these events that many movie goers may just be left utterly confused. If you want a better movie about the Doolittle raids, go rent ’’Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.’’
In the end, the only thing I can recommend about this movie are it’s special effects. The filmmakers have done a fantastic job of recreating these pivotal battles of World War II. If only they had given us an interesting storyline and some interesting characters worth caring about, then we would have had a powerhouse of a film. Unfortunately with ’’Pearl Harbour, ’’ we don’t. So go see ’’Pearl Harbour’’ for it’s special effects, and then go see ’’Tora, Tora, Tora!’’ and ’’Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo’’ for some real storylines, facts, histories and interesting characters.
Grade: C-
(Originally reviewed on May 26, 2001)