Review of Pearl Harbor (2001) by Randy R — 17 Jul 2014

I will say this, at least Michael Bay tried to make a normal film. The key word is try. And this key sentence is that he failed spectacularly. War movies and romantic dramas are NOT in his wheel house as this film is proof of that.

Michael Bay has never been a director who has cared about character development all that much, if ever at all. The movie is also 187 minutes. That's three hours and seven minutes for those if you who don't know how long that is.

Now, there are some positives. The battle scenes are excellent, and D-Day is accurately portrayed on to film. The visual effects are great, the cinematography is excellent and Hans Zimmer delivers a fantastic score.

But unfortunately, those are all technical positives. The real crimes of the film are as follows; a bad story, lifeless characters, wooden acting and the editing is typical Michael Bay, which is the film is padded out for no other reason than to pad it out.

I do like to watch long movies as long as it makes great use of its run time. This does not. It's boring, shallow and an unmitigated disaster. Not one actor turned in a good performance. Like I said at the start of this review, a romantic war drama is not in Michael Bay's wheel house.

Just stick with what you know. Don't bother with this film at all.