Pearl Harbor
Language : English / Japanese
Year of release : 2001
Run time : 3h3m
Genre : Action / War / Romance
Cast : Kate Beckinsale, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Garner, Cuba Gooding Jr, Jaime King, Tom Sizemore, John Voight, Colm Feore
Director : Michael Bay
Rafe and Danny have been best friends since childhood, and they both have been dreaming about becoming pilots.
In 1941 they are flight pilots in the US Army Force. The US didn’t join the World War II yet, and Rafe wants to be where the action is, so he volunteers for the Eagle Squadron in Britain (a unit for American volunteer pilots during the Battle of Britain). Danny doesn’t understand how could Rafe seek danger, and I agree with him. But Rafe wants to be a combat fighter.
Rafe met a nurse, Evelyn, who, seeing he couldn’t read, still passed him, and they end up dating. The night before leaving for war in Britain, Evelyn finds out she passed him so he could go fight across the ocean.
He leaves, and they write to each other every week.
At the same time we see Japan is worried the US cut their oil supply, and prepare to strike Pearl Harbor when they least expect it ( I stand with other critics who already touched on this subject; this is a stupid reason given in the movie to start a war!).
Danny and Evelyn are transferred to the Pearl Harbor base, and soon they get the news Rafe died while on a mission over the English Channel.
The pain of losing him bring the two together, and they start dating.
Rafe turns out to be alive, and comes back to the US some time later. Evelyn tells him she thought him to be dead, and moved on with Danny.
Rafe gets upset and stops talking to the two of them.
After a fight one evening, the two childhood friends start talking again.
Unluckily for them, the next morning, they are woken up by the Japanese planes dropping b0mbs on Pearl Harbor.
I personally enjoyed the movie. It had beautiful vivid colors, I liked how it was filmed, the angles..it looked like a clean,polished music video (it’s a compliment).
I didn’t quite like the love triangle, as I don’t like movies with love triangles. Evelyn goes from Rafe to Danny, SPOILER to Rafe again, after Danny dies.
The actors were good.
Dan Aykroyd and William Fichtner make cameo appearances.
I liked the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer.
The visual effects were good.
The movie received negative reviews from critics, and has an approval rating of 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 44 score on Metacritic. Cinema Score audiences loved it, giving it an A-.
The movie grossed a little over 449 million dollars at the box office against a budget of 140 million dollars, being the 6th highest grossing movie of the year 2001.
Pearl Harbor was nominated for many awards, including for 4 Oscars, winning Best Sound Editing; 2 Golden Globes, 1 Grammy Award, but also for 6 (!) Raspberry Awards, including for Worst Movie; and 3 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, winning Worst Screenplay for a Film Grossing More Than a 100 Million Dollars !
Movie Trivia : Michael Fassbender was quoted as saying he didn’t get the audition for the part of Rafe, Neve Campbell couldn’t play in the movie due to scheduling conflicts, while Charlize Theron turned a part down to star in Sweet November (which was a flop).
The movie is for free on the Dailymotion platform.
Rating : Worth a watch !