Review – Pearl Harbor

I saw this movie a week or so after hearing a story on the radio about the picture’s premiere in Japan. At the time I wondered how on earth Hollywood could ever market such a thing to the descendants of the bad guys. Now it’s apparent to me: the Japanese – brief though their roles are in this three-hour monster – are the closest this idiotic tale ever comes to characters who act from motivations that seem in any way noble or honorable. And given that they’re sneak-attacking and killing without mercy, that should give you some idea of just how pathetic the rest of the characters turn out to be. Honestly, I wish these hyper-macho fighter jockey types could just come out and admit that they’re in love with each other so they won’t have to complicate their lives with women. Beyond the sickly sweet Harlequin romance between the guys and the love interest (and between the guys themselves – honestly, this is the gayest movie I’ve seen this side of Acres of Ass Part 3, and this parade of closet cases lacks pornography’s healthier, open acceptance of gay sexuality), this picture sports maybe a half an hour or so of exciting, effects-intensive battle sequences, a dose of selectively-accurate history, a lot of thinly-disguised military recruiting propaganda and not a lot of anything else. In the end the planes came nowhere close to making the rest of the agonizing experience worthwhile. Wish I’d skipped it