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Buy, Rent or Skip Pearl Harbor?

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Author Topic: Pearl Harbor (2001)  (Read 62 times)

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Chiprocks1

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Pearl Harbor (2001)
« on: June 05, 2012, 12:46:58 am »
Pearl Harbor - 4 Disc Director's Cut




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The biggest issue I have with Pearl Harbor can be found within' the first 30 minutes of the film, with even more dead weight in the following half hour as well. With a subject matter as serious as Pearl Harbor, I think playing it up for laughs with the soldiers trying to score chicks in whatever manner possible is kind of a diisrpectful toward what is at the heart of Pearl Harbor. It fails on all levels, and on top of that, forcing us to have to sit through one of the most trite and lame "love stories" ever put on film is just a bit too much. It's what ultimately sinks this movie.

Michael Bay clearly suffers from a serious case of inferiority complex with regards to competing against James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. Pearl Harbor is basically a mashup of Titanic, Saving Private Ryan and a little Casablanca thrown in for good measure. Bay's only motivation for making this movie was to capitalize on the monster success of Titanic. He figured that all he needed to do was stick a "love story" in the middle of a major historical event and it would all be gravey after the fact. Simply put, Cameron and Spielberg are revolutionary and trend setters, Bay apes and butchers them. He lacks anything close to being a true filmmaker. To me he is just a music video director with more money and toys to play with on a bigger scale.

You will never seen anthing serious from him. You never see a Schindler's List, or a Braveheart or a Dances With Wolves. It's really a shame that he wants to produce nothing more than disposable entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I love those types of movies too. But there is a time and a place for everything and I would think somebody like Bay would want to do a passion project that is serious enough to dial down all the histrionic camera moves and explosions to cover up a bad script.

The reason why Titanic worked is because it's two leading actors (Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) had incredible chemistry between to the two of them. In Pearl Harbor, I saw not an ounce of chemistry between Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale at all. Zilch. Although Kate wasn't all that convincing on her part, I lay the blame squarely on Affleck's shoulders. He has never been able to portray any kind of chemsitry with any of his love interests. Just look at Chasing Amy, Jersey Girl and Armageddon. Hell, he didn't even have chemistry with his soon-to-be wife, Jennifer Garner in Daredevil. What does that tell you?

Josh Hartrnett who is awesome in Black Hawk Down wasn't any better at convincing me or anyone else in the theater that the love story was believable in any way. I reiterate that if the 'Love Triangle' had been left on the cutting room floor, the movie would have played so much better.

So, enough with the bad stuff, how about some good stuff. The only thing worth watching here is of course the attack on Pearl Harbor. As much as I despise Michael Bay, I will give him props for staging a very convincing reenactment of that fateful day. We get a good 35 minutes of nonstop Hollywood carnage. After this, is goes downhill once again. It runs a bit too long (kinda like this bloated rant / "review" ). But I will say that the second half of the film is way better than the first half. But that too is a bit misleading.

Pearl Harbor just leaves me  p i s s  off at the end of the day in what could have been compared to what we ended up with. This is a Rent, just for the middle section of the movie. The 1st and 3rd Acts you can actually Skip.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2012, 12:51:04 am by Chiprocks1 »
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