My husband wanted to see Shrek but I talked him into watching Pearl Harbor instead. He knows that I am very interested in Pearl Harbor. I have always had a keen interest in the Arizona. I was a baby boomer and having a father that was in WWII I heard a lot about the Japanese attack and the war with Hitler, I cut my teeth on stories about them.

The Movie

Two small boys growing up in Tennessee in 1923, playing pilot as most children do . Rafe (Ben Affleck) has dyslexia and Danny (Josh Hartnett) is always helping him . They are best friends and enter the armed forces together. Where Danny is still helping him to pass his eye tests. This is where he meets Evelyn Played by (Kate Beckinsdale) a beautiful actress who portrays a nurse in the film, and the love interest later of both men.

Rafe reminds me of Tom Cruise in Top Gun except he is not as polished as Tom. His daring acrobatics irritates his commander Lt. Capt. James “Jimmy” Doolittle
played by( Alec Baldwin).

Amid a bunch of fly boys and nurses there is always a daring do with helpful hints on how to get the girls to sleep with you. Care free and careless, they play and date and Rafe and Evelyn fall in love Only to be parted when he volunteers to go to England to fight the Germans in the eagle division.

In Japanese waters he is shot down and presumed to be dead. After the shock of Rafes death has worn off Danny and Evelyn get together and fall in love.

About an hour of this long drawn out love triangle when Rafe returns from the dead the day before the attack and finds that his girl has fallen in love with his best friend.

The rest is the usual cliché that surrounds the movie’s main interest which is the attack on Pearl by the Japanese.

When the attack starts, you see close ups of missles falling into the ships on Battleship Row. Cuba Gooding Jr, plays a real hero of the attack, Doris “Dorie” Miller.

Miller was a cook and personal assistant to the commander of his ship. He races as the bridge is bombed and takes the commander down to the first aid station on the ship before running top side and grabbing a gun and shooting. He shoots a plane down.

His part was short and seemed out of place in the movie. There was no smooth integration of his role. I thought that he had one of the better parts but back in 1941 there were not a lot of blacks in the Navy.

The attack scenes were vivid and realistic and the only part of the movie that did not drag along. Watching the mighty Arizona go down was breath taking. It bears remembering that the real events took place on December 7 1941.

Thinking of all the men that went down with the Arizona lead to tears and wondering at the terror the men felt. The movie had scenes that enhanced these feelings.

I actually felt that I was on the ships and found myself wondering if I was in the water would I die from burns, bullets or shark attacks. Then I found myself hoping that the attack happened so fast that the men did not have time to fear their deaths.

There were over two thousand people killed when the attack was launched on Dec 7, our Pacific Fleet was ruined.

I feel the director did a fairly good job of recreating the chaos that occurred on that day.


In truth there were 334 survivors of the Arizona.
http://www.nps.gov/usar/AZSurviv2.htm

There were 1177 men that went down with the Arizona
Information from the University of Arizona Library
USS Arizona - A Brief History

The Japanese launched two waves of their attacks, shooting and bombing with torpedoes they had fixed to run in shallow water. The underwater scene of one torpedo shows it zooming to its target under the feet of the many sailors already in the water. They tried to spare none. They raked the men in the water with machine gun fire as well as those that were trying to get off a sinking ship.

The hospital scenes were dynamic and no one knew what to do as the shock and traumatic entrance of the dead and wounded began. Men and women dying right and left. Taking lipstick and marking the ones that have a chance to survive with one letter and the ones doomed to die with another letter.
The dead and dying are piled outside and the kitchen is made into a place to put the wounded.

While all of this is going on our brave heroes are driving through the machine gun fire trying to get to an airfield outside of Pearl. The Japanese have found this one also and are just starting to appear over the air field when our heroes are able to get planes into the air.

The real attack on Pearl Harbor started at 7:53 AM the first wave. The second wave started at 8:55 AM they were on their way home at 9:55 in their wake was 2,403 dead,188 planes destroyed and 8 battle ships that were on Battle Ship Row either damaged or destroyed. Out of the eight six returned to duty eventually.

"Attack At Pearl Harbor, 1941," EyeWitness - history through the eyes of those who lived it, www.ibiscom.com (1997).

The last part of the movie was about the special force that Dolittle(Alec Baldwin) puts together for a raid into Tokyo.

The men are on what could be considered a suicide mission. After they bomb Tokyo there isn’t enough gas to make it to china they crash on the coast of china where Japanese forces are located.

The only laugh I got out of this movie was when I was crying at the same time and that was when Danny tells Rafe to make sure someone else does the writing on his tombstone. I must have been the only one to get it because I know out of the whole theater I was the only one to laugh.

This movie brought tears to my eyes when the attack scenes were going on and I thought of all the men that fought and died that day. It still gives me goose bumps to think of that now.

Actors

Ben Affleck .... Rafe McCawley
Josh Hartnett .... Danny Walker
Kate Beckinsale .... Evelyn Johnson
William Lee Scott .... Billy
Greg Zola .... Anthony Winkle
Ewen Bremner .... Red
Alec Baldwin .... Doolittle
James King (IV) .... Betty
Catherine Kellner .... Barbara
Jennifer Garner .... Sandra
Michael Shannon (V) .... Theo
Jon Voight .... President Roosevelt
Cuba Gooding Jr. .... Doris 'Dorie' Miller
Matthew Davis (II) .... Joe
Mako .... Admiral Yamamoto
John Fujioka .... Nishikura
Dan Aykroyd .... Captain Thurman

(This is not a list of the full credits).

Written by Randall Wallace who also wrote the screen play for BraveHeart and The Man In The Iron Mask. While these two movies were gems. He missed
the boat with Pearl Harbor. He wrote the book Pearl Harbor that was published before the movie debued. It follows the book closely and the book was boring untill the attack on Pearl. Just like the movie

Directed by Michael Bay who also has The Rock to his credit.

Produced by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer

Cinematographer John Schwartzman

All of these men have some of the same movies to their credit, they have worked together before and it shows.


The crews that recreated the sets like the hangers and hospital did a very good job. The hospital looked like it should have in that time period.

The costumes and hairstyles were true as far as I can tell. I think the costume designers did an outstanding job.

The music was sad and haunting throughout the whole movie, which led to the somber feeling all along that something was going to happen soon.

The scenes of Hawaii were beautiful the sunsets gorgeous made you want to be there.

Conclusion

The movie could have been a lot shorter instead of dragging out for three hours.

I think that Ben could have been a lot better with some decent lines I don’t know what Richard Wallace was thinking about he has such blockbusters under his belt and With all the movies that he has written I expected better dialogue.

Josh Hartnett was a new comer to me I have never observed him in a movie before but his acting should get him off to a brilliant career, his good looks alone should be a hit with the young set.

Evelyn played by Kate is a very beautiful woman, no one looking at her would know she once was anorexic.

I did not recognize Jon Voight as Roosevelt until the movie was almost over. Whoever did the makeup on him did a very good job, only his eyes said Voight the rest of his face said Roosevelt.

My three favorite actors in this film were not the stars but the supporting actors they were Ewen Brenner as Red who fell in love with Betty played by James King IV who returned Reds Love. She was cast as a 17 year old nurse. She looked older then that but her bubbly personality in the film matched Reds exuberance .

The other actor I liked was Tom Sizemore who plays Earl an airplane mechanic. I was cheering him on when he tried to shoot the Zeros with a shotgun.

The movie is worth watching on the big screen where the bombs are dropping around you and the zeros are hot on your tail. The attack would not look the same on a television screen
.
If you want information on the attack of Pearl Harbor here are some links.

http://www.ibiscom.com/pearl.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/











Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older