Pearl Harbor
If ever there was a poster child for the twice-chewed meal it is director Michael Bay, who has made a lucrative career out of rehashing and recycling previous films and movies, all better done than he might do, with the latest example of his not-so subtle filmmaking style being "Pearl Harbor".
As the title (and the heavy-handed marketing blitz) suggests this story is about Pearl Harbor and the Japanese militaristic slaughter rained on it on 7 December 1941.
Wait. That's not correct. This story SHOULD BE about the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor that took place 7 December 1941.
It isn't, however. That it isn't goes to explain why this movie (and I use that term very loosely; this is three hours of Politically Correct crap) will--pun intended--eventually bomb at the box office. What it is about is. . .
What it is about is. . . is. . . uh. . .
Wait. What is this movie about, anyway? Let's see: It is three hours of self-indulgent celluloid nonsense that could easily be reduced to two hours. It is Michael Bay's ego, physically manifested as 100 million dollars plus. It is special effects that are not really that special. It is a love story that, like almost everything else in this movie, was lifted from war movies like "From Here to Eternity", and/or "Gone With The Wind".
And it is NOT--contrary to what Michael Bay said in an interview--equatable or comparable to ANYTHING the late Sir David Lean did.
These issues and problems, incidentially, just barely scratch the surface that is the superficiality that is "Pearl Harbor".
And I have yet to get to the audience this cinematic wetwork was meant for.
Who would that be? Obviously not anyone who actually lived through Pearl Harbor, who witnessed, first-hand, the horror that was that fateful day. Apparently "Pearl Harbor" is meant for those who are, willingly, weak-minded sorts who, some day, will view Bill Clinton as godlike. (Even though the truth, the facts, are otherwise.) Those who cannot be bothered with such hubris as reality, context, or history.
Speaking of things history I must, momentarily, jump ahead to the end of the movie and talk, albeit briefly, about the presentation of one Jimmy Doolittle and his raiders, who flew on Tokyo, who crash-landed in China because they were fired upon by Japanese patrols. Unless you know history (and I do, despite being a product of the public education system in the U.S. of A.) you will leave the darkened theater confused over the presence of U.S. fliers in China. A brief explanation since director Bay didn't see fit to include this: There was, prior, to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a war underway. It was called the Sino-Japanese war. This means, simply, the presence of Japanese in China. Japanese who shot at the aforementioned U.S. fliers.
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