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Kik's Spoiler-Filled Review of PEARL HARBOR

Warning: This review contains major spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know what happens, divert your eyes now or forever hold your peace. You have been warned.



Synopsis of Kik's review: Mushy predictable soap-operish love story, a half hour of decent action sequences (with a lot of images stolen from other better films), nice cinematography (Michael Bay knows how to deliver the eye candy), anticlimactic ending. This movie never ends. Basically, it's a sappy chick flick.

Okay, on with the spoiler-filled review.

I'm sitting there and the trailers end, and the movie begins, and right away I know I'm in for something weird, because there's no studio logo, no opening credits, just a lovely shot of the sunset. The camera lingers on this, it's the kind of sunset that doesn't exist in reality, the kind of sunset that only exists on the big screen thanks to the magic of Kodak Technicolor, CGI wizardry and wondrous camera lens filters. I'm thinking to myself, okay maybe this is a commercial?

But no, the words PEARL HARBOR superimpose over that fantasy sunset. The movie has begun --

Sorry, we cannot call this a mere "movie." The film-makers clearly do not think of this as just a movie. This is a MOTION PICTURE EPIC OF ENORMOUS PROPORTION. That's what that opening shot is supposed to tell us. "Hey, America, notice how Disney hasn't tainted this masterpiece by placing its studio logo in front of the film? Notice how we're not listing the hundreds of producers and executive producers and co-producers and assistants to producers before the titles of this glorious cinematic gift to you? Notice how we're not listing the superstar young studs and goddesses who are starring in this sure-to-be-Oscar-worthy BLOCKBUSTER? Notice how we're just listing the title and then starting the movie (oops, I mean CELLULOID MARVEL) and saving the DIRECTED BY credit for the very end like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and other cool directors do? This is not your typical movie, my popcorn-munching friends, this is an EVENT! The opening shot tells us so. It's like that thin flag waving in the opening shot of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Get it? It's symbolic! Get it? It's a sunset! Get it? It's the greatest sunset ever captured on film by the greatest director who ever lived! Get it? It represents the sun setting on the innocence of America! Get it???? You are about to watch and experience the MOST IMPORTANT (and highest grossing) FILM OF THE YEAR, nay the NEW MILLENIUM! Get it???"

Yeah, enough already, I got it.

So I settled in, fearing the worst, but hoping for the best.

Two little boys on the screen, playing like they're WWI fighter pilots. Very Spielbergian. Anyway, melodramatic stuff ensues...

Flash forward, the boys are now grown and look like movie stars Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. They're real pilots now, yada yada.

Hey look, Alec Baldwin is in this movie. Good god, he's acting like he's in a Saturday Night Live skit. What's next, a cameo by Dan Ackroyd?

Anyway, mushy stuff ensues as Ben Affleck tries to pass his medical exam -- he's dyslexic, but his buddy and the pretty nurse (the love interest Kate Beckinsale) help him pass the eye test to become a fighter pilot (his life long dream). The dyslexia is now forgotten for the rest of the movie, since the plot requires a lot of love letter reading and writing and important telegrams being sent, so dyslexia would just get in the way. It served its purpose, so let's move on, shall we?

Okay, blah blah, boring mushy stuff happens, Ben and Kate fall in love. But that pesky Hitler is causing trouble in Europe. And should we trust the Japanese?

Cut to the White House. Jon Voight in a wheel chair looking like an actor with prosthetics trying to look like FDR. Good grief!!! There's Dan Ackroyd as a code guy! Man, he's gotten fat. But it's still Dan Ackroyd. Cut to some shots of the Emperor of Japan. Maybe this was later in the movie. It's all a blur -- these scenes are just lumped in haphazardly, because the important thing is the LOVE STORY. Who needs complex political retrospection about sneak attacks and war strategy and other stuff like that, right?

Back to the mushy stuff. Ben volunteers to go to London to help fight the war raging over there because he's one of the best pilots in the world, yes indeed. He bids his love Kate goodbye. Says goodbye to his best buddy Josh (do these characters have names? Probably, but as I said, it's all a blur.) Big CASABLANCA farewell scenes.

Blah blah blah, love letters are sent back and forth, war is hell, WHOA, BEN AFFLECK'S PLANE GETS SHOT DOWN AND HE DIES AT SEA!!!!!! Holy crap, I think for a brief second. Could it be? Could these film-makers be so bold as to kill off the marquee star of the movie a third of the way into the plot? (Ha, a "third" of the way -- I was being optimistic. More like a "tenth.") What a cool way to shock the audience and make them think, wow, ANYONE can die in combat, ANYTHING can happen in this plot -- I could hear Michael Bay and the Disney honchos yelling at me, "Ha, you silly movie goers! You didn't see THAT coming did you! You think we're not brave enough to kill a STAR! Well, ha! If Hitchcock can do it in PSYCHO, we we sure as hell can do it here. This is an EPIC you're watching, don't forget that! This is the MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF ALL TIME! Hold on to your seats!" Could I be this lucky? Have I misjudged this movie (I mean film)?

Nope.

Back in America...grief for the death of good old Ben. Josh and Kate, surprise surprise, fall in love and have sex. Looks like Kate is pregnant. We see a bunch of supporting actors and know that at least some of them will probably die when the good part of the movie finally begins [ -- I look at my watch, it's like an hour and forty five minutes into the film and still no really cool battle scenes to brag about, what a gyp! only fiften minutes left, where are all the bombs and air battles (again, "only fifteen minutes left" ha - ha, little did I know -- ) ].

Anyway, more sappy melodrama. GUESS WHAT!!! Ben lives!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you surprised? Apparently no one else in the theater was either. No gasps, no reactions, not a stir, not a peep. (This will be the typical audience reaction for the entire movie, I mean motion picture. I had to check a couple of times to see if there were actually other people in the theater with me, because the silence was eerie. Nothing. No applause, no sounds of sobs, nothing. I might have heard some snores, but that may have been me.)

Anyway, more melodrama. "You're my best buddy and you slept with my girl?" "But we thought you were dead!" Blah blah.

Stuff happens. The good part FINALLY begins.

And it's not bad. Good special effects. Nice big explosions. Underwater bullets like in Saving Private Ryan. People sliding down capsizing ships like in Titanic. Buddies fighting in aerial dogfights like in Top Gun and Star Wars. Half hour worth of decent (if derivative) coolness.

Oh yeah, Cuba Gooding Jr. is in this too. But his character (based on a truly heroic real person) was reduced to a token cameo. (But it made my distracted mind wander and think how perfect Cuba would be in the role of Muhammad Ali, but oh yeah, they've already cast Will Smith in the part. Too
bad.)

ANYWAY, the climax is over. Time to wrap this sucker up and go home. Nice eye candy, cool attack scene, typical summer popcorn flick.

But wait, this thing isn't ending. What's going on here? Crap, this thing is still going on! What the f--k! It's almost three feckin' hours and this sh-t is STILL going on? The climactic battle scenes happened already, shmuckos!!! What is this junk now???? Oh god, please don't show me the entire freakin' WAR until the bombing of Hiroshima!!!! For the love of humanity!! Somebody stick a "The End" on this sucker! Anybody! HELP!!! MAKE IT STOP! IT'S ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES AND IT'S STILL GOING ON WITH NO END IN SIGHT!!!! DEAR LORD!!!!!!!!!

Okay, finally, the movie ends. Sad melodramatic death scenes. Vows of forgiveness and eternal friendship. Sappy empty emotionless love scene. A sunrise followed by "directed by Michael Bay, your cinema god, bow before
him, peasant movie-goers." YES! IT'S OVER.

Okay, it wasn't as bad as all that, but man if it were at least a half hour shorter it would have been much more bearable. People would have walked out with that final battle scene in their heads and all the moneyshots in their memory and all the outlandish DUMB soap opera fiction would have been forgotten and everybody would be saying, "Hey, it wasn't so bad, it was a decent summer popcorn flick." Instead, Bay and Disney needed to make this into an EVENT, an EXPERIENCE, the "most important film of all time", and it turned out to be a shallow piece of cinema.

That's my opinion. See it and judge for yourself. I hope I haven't ruined it for you.
posted by Nick at 3:04 PM [edit]