Pearl Harbor (2001, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale) – Classic Film Review 1142

After its $5million launch party, 2001’s most hyped movie and, at £135million, the most expensive film of all time at the time, is now exploding all over a screen near you. Director Michael Bay’s epic war movie is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace. All big names. But is it any good? Well, yes and no.

Two hunky blokes, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, act mean and moody as American fly-boys, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker in 1941, who both love a dedicated young nurse named Evelyn (our own Kate Beckinsale, complete with dazzling smile and well-honed American accent).

After an hour and a half, this exceedingly cheesy three-way romance, which is set in glorious pop-video-style images against rumblings of war in Europe, gives way to the film’s must-see sequence: the sudden and unexpected attack by the Japanese on the US armed forces Hawaiian base of Pearl Harbor.

Nothing stops the pounding brilliance of these 45 minutes of celluloid. This total state-of-the-art stuff represents a triumph for Hollywood’s computer special effects and production crews.

But, with the Yanks galvanised to wreak revenge on the Japs, the film takes a horribly American gung-ho stance that’s pretty hard to swallow. Still, at three hours, it packs a full measure of cheeky, glossy entertainment. Jon Voight’s impersonation of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a tour-de-force, delivering his Day of Infamy Speech to the American nation and asking the US Congress to declare a state of war with the Empire of Japan.

Despite bad reviews and word of mouth, it as became a major hit, earning nearly $450 million worldwideand was nominated for four Oscars, but only won for Best Sound Editing (George Watters II, Christopher Boyes). Sound, Visual Effects and Original Song (Diane Warren’s ‘There You’ll Be’) were also nominated. The movie features a large ensemble cast, also including Cuba Gooding, Jr, Tom Sizemore, Colm Feore, Mako, Jennifer Garner, Ewen Bremner, Michael Shannon, William Fichtner, Jaime King, Catherine Kellner and Alec Baldwin.