Pearl Harbor

John Chard

September 25, 2014

5/10

OK! Lets not beat around the bush, it's historically suspicious, badly written, badly cast and clearly an hour too long. A splendid "support cast" are wasted as Michael Bay and his production team think they can produce some sort of Titanic of the Skies like epic and fail in their objective. By the time of the brilliantly constructed assault by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, and "it is" exhilarating and edge of the seat heart pounding, you are left with the feeling that all the main characters in…

CinemaSerf

July 1, 2022

6/10

After about half an hour, I started to wonder if this film was going to take as long to get going as a pearl takes to form in an oyster! It's a close run thing, as it must be around eighty minutes in before the Japanese come to the rescue of the audience and introduce some action into this over-long and dreary romance. Certainly it is all handsomely presented with Ben Affleck ("Rafe") at his most swarthy as he gets it to together with "Evelyn" (Kate Beckinsale). Having put us through the usual "…

Wuchak

January 30, 2023

9/10

**_A fine drama/romance combined with great war action_** "Pearl Harbor" (2001) is a Titanic-ized version of the tragic events of Pearl Harbor—a fabricated drama/romance hooking the viewer into the deceitful attack of December 7, 1941. It's 85 minutes before the attack occurs so the drama/romance and build-up to the infamous day BETTER be good, and it is. It's believable too (except maybe for the premature sex scene, which inaccurately transfers modern morals to the early '40s). This first…

Pearl Harbor is one of those movies that gets a lot of hate, but honestly, I don’t think it deserves all of it. People go in expecting a war film and get a romance drama instead, which seems to be where most of the criticism comes from. The plot focuses more on a love triangle than the historical attack itself, and while that might not be what everyone wanted, it was clearly the film’s intention. If you can accept that it's a romantic drama set against a war backdrop, rather than a war film with…

GenerationofSwine

March 1, 2026

1/10

I think the best review on this was "An American love triangle interrupted by a bombing" or something along those lines and that pretty much sums it up. The action is pretty cool, but... that's all you get.