Pearl Harbor (2001)

 

                    On the 80^th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, let’s take a look at the much maligned movie that borrows the name of the battle.  Hence the problem.  The title implies that the movie will be historical.  Which it sort of is, but it strays from the path so much that history buffs have crucified it.  The movie has a putrid reputation in the war movie loving community to where you would assume it was a bomb (sorry).  But in actuality, the movie was a big hit and made $450 million.  Director Michael Bay (“13 Hours”) was given a $200 million budget.  He was allowed to film at naval facilities in Hawaii.  He didn’t care much about modern warships appearing in frame which evidences a “fuck you, rivet counters” attitude.  He used the USS Lexington at Corpus Christi for the USS Hornet and a Japanese carrier.  Takeoffs and landings were filmed.  The USS Texas near Houston was also used.  The world’s largest gimbal was used to show the bow section of the USS Oklahoma’s turning upside down.  But, of course, the movie is most famous for its CGI work.  It was nominated for an Oscar for Visual Effects (losing to “Lord of the Rings:  The Fellowship of the Ring”).  It won and Academy Award for Sound Editing.  It was nominated for Sound and Original Song (“There You’ll Be”).  Conversely, it was nominated for 6 Golden Raspberries, including Worst Picture, Director, and Actor (Ben Affleck).

                    The movie is as buddy movie that morphs into a love triangle.  Rafe (Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) are childhood pals who enlist together in 1941.  They become hot shot fighter pilots after Rafe cheats on the eye test with the help of a comely nurse named Evelyn (Kate Beckingsdale).  They start a relationship that is as schmaltzy as can be.  But as in all war movies, war comes before women.  Rafe goes off to England to join the Eagle Squadron and fight in the Battle of Britain.  When word arrives in Hawaii that Rafe has been killed in action, Danny and Evelyn console each other, thus establishing the other side of the triangle.  For those of you that think a movie would be killed off its lead actor before the big attack, you’ve got a surprise coming.  As do Danny and Evelyn.  Awkward!  Besides the buddy dynamic and the love triangle, the movie also establishes a small unit trope.  Danny and Rafe are in a squadron of flyboys that includes a ladies’ man and a stutterer.  As though the love triangle was not enough for luring females into the theater, the male group is matched up with Evelyn’s girlfriends.  The stutterer gets engaged to one of the girls. Flip a coin as to which has to die to fulfill the cliché.

                    Rafe makes his miraculous return in time for the Japanese attack.  He and Danny manage to take-off and dogfight their way into heroism.  They may be hot shot pilots, but CGI allows them to do acrobatics worthy of Luke Skywalker.  I need no spoiler alert to tell you that Rafe and Danny are not able to prevent the battle from being a disaster.  Since no American wants to leave the theater despondent and to protect Japanese cars from being keyed, Bay ends the film with the Doolittle Raid.  Rafe and Danny become bomber pilots with no training.  Add revenge flick to the film’s resume.  And mark the awkward love triangle as resolved.  Get your hankies out, unless you’ve already shoved it in your mouth to muffle the screams.

                    I am not among the multitude who abhor this movie.  It has been pilloried for historical accuracies, deservedly so.  However, if a viewer gets their only knowledge of Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid from it, that is better than nothing.  It gets many details wrong, but the overall coverage of the battle is within historical license, in my opinion.  And many of the details are right.  Like the Dorie Miller (Cuba Gooding) character, who you would assume is fictional.  As you would Rafe and Danny.  Surprisingly, Rafe and Danny are based on George Welch and Kenneth Taylor.  They were able to take off and shoot down several Japanese aircraft.  Not the way Rafe and Danny did, of course.  Because they did not have CGI P-40s.  The CGI in the film is spectacular.  I prefer a computer generated Zero to an A-6 Texan masquerading as one (even though Bey insisted on the computer painting them dark green so rubes could tell “the good guys from the bad guys”).  My problem is CGI allows the planes to defy the laws of aerodynamics.  Bay has them flying between the battleships, for instance.

                    I can put up with the historical inaccuracies, but not the insults to my intelligence.  The movie is full of mockery.  The fact that it was a big hit is a reflection on the IQ level of the average movie goer.  Rafe joins the RAF in 1941 when the Battle of Britain is over.  They have exchanged numerous love letters (gag!), but he doesn’t bother telling Evelyn that he has survived the crash until he returns to Pearl.  During the attack, they lure a Japanese Zero by a tower so their buddies can shoot it down with small arms.  Rafe and Danny join the elite Doolittle Raiders even though they have no experience in bombers.  Evelyn listens in to the Tokyo bombing as though she is listening to a radio broadcast of a football game.  I could go on, but you get the point. 

                    But if you can overcome the urge to laugh when there is no cue, the movie can be entertaining.  It has a predictable romance that is enhanced by swelling music, but you don’t make $450 million from just male war movie lovers.  I actually think the romance in “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” is worse.  The acting is not a big drawback.  Critics tended to pound Affleck, but he gives the type of performance you would expect in a blockbuster romance/action picture.  If he had acted well, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb.  The cast did the best they could with some of the most trite dialogue ever placed in a war movie. But, no one went to see the movie for the acting and dialogue.  They went for the explosions and boy does this movie sate them.  There are so many explosions that they did not have enough CGI bombs to handle all of them.  The attack is spectacular and does not stray too far from reality.  The chaos was real.  I think “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is the superior movie overall, but this movie is state of the art when it comes to special effects.  For example, the overturning of the Oklahoma is stunning.

                    “Pearl Harbor” has gotten something of a raw deal.  It was gutsy to pump $200 million into a movie about one of America’s most embarrassing losses.  Enough years had passed since “Tora!” for an entire generation to have forgotten about the battle and this movie does a decent job as a tutorial.  It flubs up on some facts, but it is apparent that the screenwriters did some research.  Of course, when the facts conflicted with entertainment, you know which won.  The inclusion of the Doolittle Raid makes no sense except to have a victorious ending, but I see the box office reasoning behind it.  And the historical illiterates can learn a little about a second historical event.  A little.  But that’s better than nothing.  And did I mention the explosions.

 

GRADE  =  C-