Review of Pearl Harbor (2001) by Jake H — 01 Feb 2014

*Walks into room and violently flips table*.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS S#!T??

Seriously, who's idea was it to turn one of the most tragic days in U.S. history into one of the most bullshitted love stories ever put to film?? Peal Harbor ranks right up there with tragedies the likes of 9/11, and many others that aren't coming to mind at the moment because it is rather late in the night, BUT COME ON! A movie like this should shake me to the core. Hell, it should punch me right in the emotional gut so hard that I should at least get some water in my eyes! I didn't feel jack shit after watching this. I was just kinda dazed and confused, stumbling about the house as I tried to come to terms with what the hell I just witnessed.

This movie is pretty much a shit version of Titanic, with a shit-ton of explosions thrown in to the mix. Aside from that, it's just a crappy "Murica f#@k yeah!" type of film, with plenty of Yankee cheese, and dollar store symbolism. The attack scene itself only takes up 40 minutes in this THREE HOUR film, but it is one of its lone bright spots. It starts out as a powerful display of the ferocity of the attack, with planes whizzing about, ships exploding, and people getting tossed about like rag dolls. The action is very well done, but it loses all its emotional weight when our two hotshot heroes climb into P-40's and start kicking the Japanese' ass. At that point it just becomes a cliche action film as opposed to a powerful dramatization of the tragic events of December 7th.

This film did absolutely nothing right, and serves as both a terrible telling of history, and terrible storytelling in general. Hans Zimmer did an incredible job on the score though.