With Jerry Bruckheimer attached to a movie, you’re guaranteed an overdose of Hollywood extravaganza. Pearl Harbor is no exception. As this summer’s blockbuster, what it basically boils down to is three hours of big effects interlaced with a cliché script.
Pearl Harbor is centered on lifelong friends Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett). Their relationship is one of brotherly camaraderie until they eventually fall for the same woman. The focus of this trite love triangle is Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale). One moment she is an independent nurse searching for any means to save a life, and at the next she’s transposed to a misty-eyed girl who can’t get enough of these two men claiming how beautiful she is. Lacking any human emotion, these three leads walk through the motions of falling in love, facing death, and being in the heart of war. The only redeeming character is Dorie Miller played with genuine soul by Cuba Gooding Jr. Maybe that’s because he’s the only character taken from true life, or it could be that his screen time totaled about fifteen minutes, or so it seemed.
All characters aside, Pearl Harbor does offer a few thrilling aspects. After an hour and a half the actual point of the story begins – the bombing of Pearl Harbor – and it’s difficult not to get caught up in the explosive effects. Director Michael Bay fairly accurately depicts the surprise attack by the Japanese forces and it’s so engrossing at times that you almost forget how annoying the characters really are.
Already hyped as one of this summer’s biggest blockbusters, Pearl Harbor is just that. It’s a mega movie about a mega event in history, but lacking the human elements that it so rightly deserves. Though the war scenes are explosive, the heart and soul of the film is nonexistent. It’s too bad that the one hour of awe-inspiring war is drowned out by two mind-numbing hours of fluff.
+ Ashley Adams
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