What if the Transformers were B-25 Bombers?

Pearl Harbor, 3/10/13, Best Sound Editing, 2001

Well, the good news is, it didn’t kill me to watch Pearl Harbor. The bad news is it took me over three hours to make that determination. I really thought it would be horrible; it wasn’t. I do think it was trying to tell too many stories and do too much, but the action was great, true to form for director Michael Bay (who has directed the Transformers series). Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett play the two daring pilots who are also boyhood best friends, who ultimately fall in love with the same woman, played by Kate Beckinsale. The focal point of the movie, and where the most action is, is the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. The movie won for Best Sound Editing, and there is definitely a lot going on with all the action, guns, bombs, planes, people yelling, and it does all come together seamlessly. There is a lot of story that leads up to that morning (the pilots, the nurses, the president, military command). I don’t know if the movie sheds any new light on the events at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but it does show them up close. Alec Baldwin plays Jimmy Doolittle, famous for his raid over Tokyo; it’s this event that makes up the last part of the film, and something I did not know a lot about, so I liked learning about that (I will try to find some more material on this because it was an incredible story about some very brave pilots). I didn’t hear a lot of good things about this movie or the acting, and admittedly it’s not fabulous, but I have seen worse. Once I focused on the fact that it was a Michael Bay movie, I was okay with everything; he doesn’t pretend to be Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg, he makes movies like Armageddon and Transformers, and I don’t think anyone watches those movies for the acting. He (and the writer) took a pivotal event in American history and made an action movie, no more, no less. He through in a gratuitous nod to the African-Americans who served by adding Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s character (it didn’t seem very well thought out, and should have been left out or added with more scenes and dialog). If you have three hours to spare, and don’t set your expectations too high, I would recommend Pearl Harbor, if for no other reason than the information on the Doolittle raids.