May 21st,
2001
On this day, Enron
announced that it would no longer supply power to India. Rumour has
it that many of their customers asked them to get on with it as Pearl
Harbor was premiering in America that day
and they wanted to avoid it reaching them.
The Partially Educated Review
There's a director's commentary
somewhere (I think it's for The Rock)
where Michael Bay talks of his admiration for James Cameron. He
needn't have bothered telling us; Pearl Harbor
makes it pretty obvious. The parallels between this and Titanic
are so clear that it may as well be
an official sequel with both being exceedingly long and dedicating
less time to the titular event than they do to the love story at the
centre of the narrative. Also, I'm sure it's a coincidence that Titanic
“boasted” Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On
and Pearl Harbor “boasted”
Faith Hill singing There You'll Be;
a song that was actually offered to Dion first.
Where they differ is that Titanic
isn't quite as bad as some people would have you believe. Pearl
Harbor is.
It's the timeless tale of two
fighter pilots and one woman facing the great inconvenience of having
their insipid love triangle interrupted by nearly 2500 people with
the sheer gall to die and take away some of the attention. Ben Affleck and
Josh Hartnett turn on the mope (and little else), while Kate
Beckinsale looks beautiful. Let's face it, that's all a woman's
expected to do in a Michael Bay film, but she does it very well.
That part of the story is where a lot of the criticism
is thrown at Pearl Harbor
and it's wholly deserved, but my main gripe lies elsewhere. The film is
not without its moments that attempt to display the futility of war
(sometimes successfully), but they are completely dogged down by a staunch good guys vs bad guys mentality. Now, I'm not about to
start debating the heroism and bravery of the people who fought in
conflicts such as this. We all know how well it goes down when a privileged
millennial starts saying stuff like that.
However, when you present to me
scenes of soldiers taking delight in the prospect of inflicting death
on other people, I'm going to get a little irked. Not that
I'm saying it may not have happened (it quite possibly did), but when
I see the line “we're bombing Tokyo” be greeted with cheers and excitement, it can't just be me who thinks that's a little perverse.
The best war films are those in which characters deal with the
conflict between the horror of what they're doing and their sense of
duty. This film has them pretty much revel in what they're going to
do and it makes the characters so easy to dislike. I don't want to
make this look like I'm saying Michael Bay thinks war is a good
thing...
…as there's enough in Pearl
Harbor to make it clear that
isn't the case. However, those moments feel hollower than a brain
donor's skull when they're coupled with scenes that completely
contradict that. Likewise, the flashy spectacle and
daredevil antics isn't particularly welcome either. Hartnett and
Affleck's characters are incredibly guilty of this, as they move from
one flashy manoeuvrer to the next, once again perpetuating the notion
that this was a war won by two men and a couple of planes.
Pearl Harbor is a classic
misfire. It's a tailor-made piece of Oscar bait that was so
transparent it will forever dog Michael Bay's career. Even if the guy
suddenly came into his own and made a truly magnificent piece of
work, I genuinely feel like his past transgressions would dog him too
much for it to receive any true accolades. Only one month to go till
Transformers 5 though.
You never know, the guy may surprise us.
THREE out of 10
