While I rarely discuss myself on this page, a bit of background information is necessary in order for the reader to understand where I'm coming from on this review. I was in Hawaii during the premiere of the film Pearl Harbor. A few days before seeing the movie I toured Pearl Harbor, saw the Arizona memorial, and had a sense of the gravity of the events on December 7, 1941. While there I also saw the hype machine that Disney studios had set up for the movie's premiere. From the aircraft carrier Stennis decked out in red, white, and blue streamers and a gigantic movie screen to the most impressive fireworks display I have ever seen, I was more than prepared to see the movie. But even without all the hoopla of the film's opening or all the press surrounding the movie long before it came out or the unique point of view I had coming in I still think Pearl Harbor would of majorly sucked.

I went into the movie expecting to see a love story that serves as an entry point to help the audience better understand the larger historical event that unfolds around it. Instead Pearl Harbor serves up a cornball love triangle and uses World War 2 as nothing more than an excuse for zippity doo da special effects. Trying to get Pearl Harbor's epic tone started early, as well as to help pad out the film right from the get-go, the movie opens with the two protagonists -Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker- as children in the 1920's. In the span of a few minutes they engage in several improbable adventures that left me wondering if the rest of the movie was going to be as poorly done. The scene was supposed to illustrate the friendship of Rafe and Danny, but instead plays like something directed by Steven Spielberg if he was loaded up on ether.

Jumping ahead several years [the film helpfully includes the date that everything occurs on even if reminding the audience of the passage of time during a three hour movie isn't the best idea possible] we find Rafe [Ben Affleck] and Danny [Josh Hartnett] acting like hot-shot pilots in the manner only movie hot-shot pilots can. While going through his physical Rafe meets and falls for a nurse named Evelyn Johnson [Kate Beckinsale pulling off a very good American accent.] Trouble is, Rafe signed up for a tour of duty over in England -he's a hot-shot pilot, remember?- so the audience is treated to wince-inducing scenes of Evelyn and Rafe doing syrupy voice-overs while Evelyn hangs out at Hawaiian beaches in shots that would look bad on a cheap post card. Naturally, Rafe gets shot down. Naturally, Danny and Evelyn fall for each other as they share their feelings of grief. Naturally, Rafe isn't dead and manages to return to the film in the most idiotic manner possible.

Rafe, after having been missing for months in Europe, surprises everyone by turning up alive in Hawaii. This was a surprise to Danny and Evelyn because not only did they think he was dead, Rafe somehow managed to get to Hawaii before news of him being alive did. You would think that having someone return to the squad after being gone for months would be big news, but Rafe, even though he had never been to Hawaii, strolls in like returning from the dead the most natural thing in the world.

The movie bases it's entire plot on the belief that the audience is interested in what happens to these three people. Will Rafe and Danny's friendship be destroyed because they love the same girl? Should a grown man be referred to as "Danny?" Who will Evelyn finally settle on? Who cares? As much as I hate to admit it, at this point I was actually looking forward to Pearl Harbor getting bombed just so it would be a change from having to watch this stupid, stupid story-line.

Mixed somewhere into all that mess is Cuba Gooding Jr. as Doris "Dorie" Miller. For as much as he impacted the story he might as well of been in a different, better movie. Occasionally the Japanese strike force -led by Admiral Yamamoto [Mako, a.k.a. that guy from Conan the Barbarian]- would show up to remind people what the movie is supposedly about. While I understand that having a bunch of guys sitting around a table hashing out a battle plan does not provide the most gripping imagery, the laughable shot of the Japanese high command figuring out their attack by pushing toy boats around a lagoon as if they were going to film a Godzilla movie is not a good substitution. There was also some jazz about Dan Akroyd talking to President Roosevelt [Jon Voight] but the movie makers barely seemed interested in that section of the movie.

Side Note: I'm not going to nit-pick the liberties taken with history -I'll leave that to the historian nerds- but there is one point in the movie that stuck with me: why weren't there any Hawaiians in Pearl Harbor? The Hawaii in Pearl Harbor seemed to be filled with nothing but white people. There aren't any white people in Hawaii! Modern Hawaii is a mix of many different cultures, yet in this film it's all haole all the time.

After slogging through the first third of the film the bombing of Pearl Harbor starts. Turns out I didn't enjoy that much either. Not once did I get the feeling I was watching an organized attack; instead the planes seemed to fly around in a manner that would make the best shot when they zip across the screen. The fireworks that closed the premiere of the movie were a spectacular affair that ended with such a loud and intense blast of noise and light that, in spite of the fact that I was a fair distance from the proceedings, caused all the car alarms around me to be activated. I suspect that director Michael Bay was going for the movie going equivalent of that sensation when he re-figured the attack on Pearl Harbor. But instead of fireworks the whole thing came across as so much fizzle.

The shallowness of the proceedings bothered me as well. While I don't have a problem with fictional accounts of historical events the idea that an attack in which thousands of people died is being served up as a hunk of summer popcorn entertainment seems a bit distasteful.

The lack of anything remotely resembling emotional impact during and after the bombing cemented my opinion that the entire movie was going to be a dud. [Ha, I knew I couldn't go the entire review without making some sort of "bomb" reference! One shouldn't discriminate against a joke just because it's obvious.] I don't know why I thought that the movie was going to somehow redeem the relentlessly stupid opening third of the movie, but I figured that if the movie is named after a particular event it would focus on that a majority of the movie's energy would be focused on presenting it in the best manner possible. It seems I was wrong.

Not only did he manage to flub up what should of been the movie's big moment, he didn't even know enough to end the film at the proper time. Instead of ending with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the movie drags on for months afterwards [that's months of movie time, although it feels like you're sitting through weeks and weeks worth of movie] by pulling in General Doolittle [Alec Baldwin] and his raid on Japan. By this point the whole film was wildly off-track. Should a movie called Pearl Harbor have it's characters running around China? I had no idea what Pearl Harbor was supposed to be about at this point and, it seems, neither did the people making the movie.

While I was able to derive some amusement from the idea that Alec Baldwin was directly responsible for the Allied victory in World War 2 -or at least he was according to the movie- I quickly became overwhelmed trying to count the number of things lifted from other movies. Who would of guessed that Titanic -the movie Pearl Harbor is most obviously aping- would look so good in retrospect? Unable to decide whether it wants to be a romance, or a war movie, or a summer blockbuster, or a big-ass Ben Hur style epic, Pearl Harbor tries to be everything at once but ultimately ends up being nothing at all.

Questions, comments, and decyphered Japanese codes can be sent to gleep9@hotmail.com. Set sail on out of here to either the Second Movie or Main page.