Pearl Harbor (2001)
Directed by Michael Bay
The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
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37 films that influenced Pearl Harbor
What critics say influenced Pearl Harbor
As a result, Pearl Harbor constantly reminds you of other, better movies (yes, even From Here to Eternity) -- but only for a second, because then he's off to something else.
Lovelorn soldiers stationed in Hawaii have their romantic lives torn asunder when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor: you can add remaking Fred Zinnemann's Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity without due credit to the tally of Pearl Harbor 's wickedness, although a picture as cool and sensitive--the two qualities exactly lacking from Pearl Harbor --as From Here to Eternity would hardly want the acknowledgment.
As a matter of fact, there is more than passing borrowing from that Spielberg film, James Cameron's "Titanic," "From Here to Eternity" and a myriad of Hollywood war movies from the 40's and 50's.
And as a searing personal drama about an ensemble of characters whose lives are caught up in the events of Dec. 7, 1941, it's a pale shadow of one of the most celebrated movies of all time: 1953's "From Here to Eternity."
People carouse and drink on Dec. 6, 1941, as if they're in "From Here to Eternity."
Where the single shot of the Arizona doesn't provide the information director Michael Bay needs -- what the deck of the Arizona looked like during the sinking, for example; in the original film, the deck is covered in smoke -- Bay simply borrows ideas from other films, most notably Titanic, to fill in the gaps.
He even rips off moments from James Cameron's Titanic as he shows the USS Arizona sinking.
But its saving grace is a recreation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that, for sheer eye-popping spectacle, makes " Titanic " look like a kiddies' bath toy.
Obviously patterned after the love triangle of Titanic, Bay neglects to provide enough historical substance and detail to lend the credibility James Cameron supplied with his epic romance on the doomed ship.
Y en el pecado lleva la penitencia, pues ni a roto los records de taquilla que se suponÃa, ni ha sido del agrado de la crÃtica, ni es como Titanic.
Why is the buzz comparing it to Titanic?
The greatest of these films, of course, was "Casablanca," whose low-tech plot is subtly echoed underneath all the high-tech frenzy of "Pearl Harbor."
Once that is over, the makers tack on an extended sequence depicting Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid on Japan, a la Mervyn LeRoy's "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo."
Those two events have been the subject of their own books and movies (like "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo").
Like the Energizer Bunny from Hell, this thing just keeps going and going and going … We can’t leave America in this state of disgrace, so the film morphs into Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Doolittle’s (Alec Baldwin suffering from John Wayne syndrome) bombing of Japan.
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Even the action becomes tiresome after a while; that aforementioned car chase was certainly more than enough for one movie, but Bay throws in another long car chase (one that's far too reminiscent of a similar sequence within Jackie Chan's Police Story) which is admittedly well-executed but enough is enough.
Unfortunately, James Cameron's soggy romance ranks right up there with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg when compared to the sparkless, vapid dynamics going on among these three romantic misfires.
The movie, released in 1986 from director Tony Scott ("Days of Thunder," "Crimson Tide") and producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Armageddon," "Pearl Harbor"), was an immediate success.
I think that's why the movie—which, from a standpoint of acting or screenwriting or sexual politics or soundtrack-selection is just a bad, bad movie—I think that's why it's easier to take than something like Pearl Harbor.
(We know this because they do an illegal flyby, just like in Top Gun .)
There's Top Gun: Two hotshot pilots, Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett), are called on the carpet by their commanding officer, James Doolittle (Alec Baldwin), for their hotshot high jinks.
"Top Gun" meets "Star Wars" in a rousing series of air assaults that have terror written all over them.
Incidentally, although this Walt Disney movie is based, inspired and even partially informed by a real event referred to as Pearl Harbor, the movie is actually based on the movies "Top Gun," "Titanic" and "Saving Private Ryan."
Tora! Tora! Tora! -- Richard Fleischer's 1970 Pearl Harbor film, told from the Japanese and American perspectives with all the passion of a three-hour classroom lecture -- was about the details, peace talks, and betrayals.
The politics of Pearl Harbor, from military unpreparedness to the hunger for war from the White House, were relayed more cogently in 1970's Tora! Tora! Tora!, an ambitious but inert film that tells the story from both the American and Japanese sides.
Aside from 1970's Tora! Tora! Tora!, no feature film has effectively captured the scope of the Japanese offensive of that day.
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Hoping to be cheered up, they go to see Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," although if they'd bought tickets to another comedy of the same period, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne's "My Favorite Wife," they might have been better prepared for what fate holds in store for them.
Hoping to be cheered up, they go to see Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," although if they'd bought tickets to another comedy of the same period, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne's "My Favorite Wife," they might have been better prepared for what fate holds in store for them.