Guilty Pleasures: Pearl Harbor
By Shalimar Sahota
August 19, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Written by – Randall Wallace
Starring - Ben Affleck (Rafe McCawley), Josh Hartnett (Danny Walker), Kate Beckinsale (Evelyn Johnson), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Dorie Miller), Tom Sizemore (Earl Sistern), Ewen Bremner (Red Winkle), Jaime King (Betty Bayer), Jon Voight (President Roosevelt), Alec Baldwin (Jimmie Doolittle), Dan Aykroyd (Capt. Thurman)
Length - 184 minutes
Cert – R (Director’s Cut)
We all have our shameful secrets. There are movies out there we shouldn’t really admit to owning, and it’s a heavy burden to carry. However it’s time to get it out in the open and defend our guilty pleasures. You know, a bit like admitting to watching soft toy porn (you could see the stuffing, I tell you).
“The goal of any filmmaker,” says director Michael Bay, “is to produce a work that will have a lasting value through the generations. But Pearl Harbor is a special case.” This comes across as unintentionally hilarious, since for many, Bay’s Pearl Harbor has little value whatsoever.
I’ll say straight out that this is an unusual one, since I originally only viewed Pearl Harbor once when it was released on the big screen nearly a decade ago. The critical response dished out at the time was vicious and years later it received quite an amusing drubbing in Team America. Despite plenty of comparisons, it wasn’t quite the Titanic beater some were expecting when it came to box office, Oscars and eventual film quality. At the time I found it generally passable entertainment. It only happens to be in my collection because I won it in a competition, which already makes for some weak-ass defence. I didn’t get rid of it is because what I won was actually the R-rated Director’s Cut, and a part of me wanted to see how it differed. I just never really got around to watching it… till now. And now that I have… oh dear God.
Pearl Harbor attempts a love story during the time when nations made the leap from peace to all out world war. The film follows two young pilots, Rafe McCawley (Affleck) and Danny Walker (Hartnett), who grow up as the best of friends, spelled out for us when Danny says, “You’re my best friend.” They are now pilots in the US Army Air Corps. While there, Rafe has fallen in love with Evelyn Johnson (Beckinsale), a nurse serving in the US Navy. Predictably, their love has only just begun to bloom when personal destiny intervenes, and Rafe is whisked off to England to help fight the war. At the same time Danny and his fellow pilots, as well as Evelyn and the rest of the nurses, make their way to Hawaii to help at Pearl Harbor.
I don't think I'm giving any spoilers away when we see that Rafe's plane is shot down while in England. On the other side of the world, his best friend Danny brings the bad news to Evelyn. Then in true schmaltzy Hollywood style, they begin to fall in love and decide to get it on! But of course, with Affleck’s name above the title, Rafe isn't dead. He travels to Pearl Harbor and that's when the love triangle between the three begins to get messy! From watching this again, it’s even more apparent that this is pretty banal stuff.
The so-called love story here is beyond repair. Many of the great ones put some effort in when it comes to how and why two people fall in love, except here there's very little explanation as to why Rafe and Danny are drawn to Evelyn. Bay’s defense was that he was aiming for a 1940s love story, rather than anything contemporary. Supposedly this is how romance went down in those days, with Bay revealing that he received letters of praise for his interpretation, too! It’s just difficult to care about the lead characters when there's little emotion on display. When Evelyn is given the bad news about Rafe, she doesn't say anything. She just hugs the closest person around and we're treated to sad music as a substitute.
The acting from the three main leads is nothing special, but even though they had little screen time, I found the supporting roles a damn sight tastier. Cuba Gooding Jr. as Dorie Miller screams for joy after shooting down a Japanese Zero. Alec Baldwin enjoys the bullshit as Colonel Jimmie Doolittle, and Jon Voight seems to have President Roosevelt nailed. Ewen Bremner provides a memorable turn as the stuttering pilot Red Winkle, as does Tom Sizemore as plane mechanic Earl Sistern, though one could argue that he’s pretty much playing himself here.
It's a shame that one has to go through a tedious first half. Once the Japanese bombing commences, it's almost as if watching an entirely different film. The camera angles and shaky, kinetic movement during the battle sequences add a touch of realism to the action. This Director’s Cut is also incredibly graphic in places, with extra moments of blood, limbs and intestines. Then there's that impressive shot where the camera circles a bomb dropped down from a Japanese Zero upon a battleship. When the first trailer was launched back in June 2000, this was the obvious money shot that got me, and many others, excited. The resulting explosion is devastating. The momentum suddenly picks up once Rafe and Danny get to their planes to fight back. Quite simply, the battle and bombing sequences are stunning. Many explosions were shot for real with some background elements computer generated, and on the whole it’s blended together so well that it’s difficult to tell what’s CGI here and what isn’t. The sound mix is also fantastically uproarious with planes, gunfire and explosions all over the place.
Since a lot of people use movies and TV programs as their main source of information about history, youngsters especially may take what they see to be fact. Not every film about a historical event is going to be 100% spot on, but Pearl Harbor has suffered heavy criticism due to just how inaccurate it is, be it about what certain characters did, the color of planes, the weapons used and even radio transmissions. There are far too many to list, though that’s not to say everything is false. One goof that gets me includes Rafe being unable to read (supposedly dyslexic), but then he is later seen writing a letter.
Essentially Bay went to direct a summer blockbuster that was more interested in entertaining rather than informing. “My mission with Pearl Harbor was not to outline a history lesson,” says Bay in the booklet that comes with the Director’s Cut, which sounds like his way of saying that we should forgive the historical slip ups because that wasn’t his primary concern. Instead, it was, “to capture a pivotal moment in history from a realistic, gripping perspective.” If that meant blowing shit up as fantastically as possible, then he succeeded. The Director’s Cut DVD comes packaged with two History Channel documentaries about the Doolittle raid and first hand accounts from those that were there. Their inclusion is a bold necessity, since they just so happen to be more historically accurate than the film they’re bundled with.
Released on the Memorial Day weekend of 2001, expectations were high, with some predicting a new opening weekend record. Despite the three hour running time, it still managed $59 million on its opening weekend. Then came that poster with the tagline, “Not since Titanic have the critics been so out of touch with their readers. - $75.2 million in first four days.” It seemed to be telling us that this here was a film considered awful, and yet it’s made money, so therefore you should see it too. It ultimately struggled to reach $200 million, taking $198 million in the US, with another $250 million worldwide.
Nominated for six Razzie awards, it didn’t win any, though it was nominated for four Oscars, notably technical categories, and won one for Sound Editing. Clearly it’s as a technical accomplishment, which is where the film excels. If anything, this was more a tribute to ILM then the survivors of Pearl Harbor. At the time, Bay even received praise from George Lucas, telling him that the effects in the film were the best he’d ever seen.
Pearl Harbor reeks of Hollywood! It’s too long, with the Doolittle bombing of Tokyo somewhat tacked on. It’s too glossy, with its high production value painting as much style over substance. It’s too Michael Bay, with its excess of slow motion shots, sunset skies and getting Beckinsale’s Evelyn to sit on some rocks at a beach, because it’s the most ideal place when it comes to writing a letter. And it’s too Ben Affleck, who has the most insanely white teeth. One could argue that there really wasn’t any need to make another film about Pearl Harbor, since a great one already existed, called Tora! Tora! Tora!, which to its advantage doesn’t have a clichéd love triangle and offers a better account of what actually happened.
Pearl Harbor is obviously flawed, yet over the years the ridiculousness has slowly become part of its charm. So, it's admittedly not a favourite, but like much of Bay's work there is something to enjoy, and the Director’s Cut does have more of an impact when it comes to the horrors of war. However, it has to be said that this version is still only half a good film.