Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14793 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-12-03
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French, Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 183 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A big summer blockbuster, Pearl Harbor is pitched as a romantic epic, but the story is essentially a frame for an impressive depiction of the Japanese attack on that "day of infamy", deploying all the modelwork, CGI, stunts and special effects necessary to trump previous screen re-enactments in Tora! Tora! Tora! and From Here to Eternity. At heart, it's another Top Gun-style exercise in heroically sublimated homosexuality as Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Dan (Josh Hartnett), lifelong buddies, fall out over a ridiculous contrivance that allows both decently to fallin love with a nurse (Kate Beckinsale) but forget all their differences when the fighting starts--as expected, their big climax comes in each other's arms, with Kate left behind as one wounded buddy extracts a promise from the other to look after his unborn child.

Historical snippets are interleaved, with Mako and Jon Voigt stiff under the prosthetics asAdmiral Yamamoto and Franklin Roosevelt, and a lot of detail is given about things like the wooden rudders on the new Japanese torpedoes, the chaos in the understaffed hospital as the heroine is forced to make lipstick triage marks on wounded men's foreheads and the terrible effects of strafing. A surprisingly bright little performance from Dan Aykroyd (a sole reminder of 1941) as an intelligence analyst is balanced by an insufferably smug one from Cuba Gooding Jr as a token black supporting hero. It's the first film of the George W Bush era: aggressive and dumb as a rock, utterly uninterested in period--no one in this WWII-era army smokes, swears or uses racial abuse (Gooding's boxing opponent sneers at him because he's a cook)--and awkwardly straddles a dignified treatment of the Japanese and America's actual spasm of hatred after the attack (one soldier refuses to be treated by a Japanese doctor, but that's it). When Pearl Harbour is bombed, we see endangered dogs, drowning men and dead women, but when Tokyo gets blasted in payback only buildings are destroyed and in long-shot. Michael Bay (Armageddon) remains a jittery director, a great second-unit man who can't deal with people or stories. It borrows from Titanic and Saving Private Ryan, but tidies the war of the latter up so it can still haul in a broad audience and therefore misses the real tragic sense of the former.--Kim Newman

On the DVD: Considering there are two discs in the special edition of this special effects homage, the second DVD is woefully short of extras. There is a 45-minute featurette on the highs and lows of bringing Michael Bay's magnum opus to the screen which, along with the usual interviews with cast and crew, features the more compelling eyewitness testimony bringing the events of December 7, 1941 to life. The irony of the second disc focussing on the research and quest for historical accuracy is a little difficult to swallow, considering that the film is little more than a paper thin, overly romanticised muddle of history and fantasy, but for those wanting to experience the real events on that fateful day rather than the Hollywood version, this is an excellent antidote. The movie has been THX digitally mastered for superior sound and picture quality improving those big-bang special effects and is presented in anamorphic widescreen with 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Unlike the Region 1 release, there's no DTS track but the 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is more than up to the challenge of the effects laden assault, with different elements of the Japanese attack rumbling between the speakers and making you feel you're in the thick of things. -- Kristen Bowditch

Video Description
DVD Special Features:
Journey to the Screen -- The Making of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor: The Japanese Perspective
Faith Hill Music Video "There You'll Be"
Theatrical Trailer

Languages: Dolby Digital 5.1 English / Turkish
Subtitles: English / English for the hearing impaired
Widescreen 2.35:1

Synopsis
Director Michael Bay (ARMAGEDDON, THE ROCK) uses a tragic romantic triangle to set the stage for the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in this epic tale of love, loss, and patriotism. When Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a beautiful Navy nurse, meets dashing ace Army fighter pilot Rafe (Ben Affleck), the two fall madly in love, only to be separated abruptly when he is called upon to help fight the war in Europe. Unforeseen circumstances lead Evelyn into the arms of Danny (Josh Hartnett), another fighter pilot and Rafe's best friend since childhood. In the meantime, the Japanese military is planning the surprise early morning raid on Hawaii that will pull the United States into World War II. Spectacular special effects vividly recreate the attack in devastating detail as bombs explode, torpedoes shoot through the water, and bullets fly, shaking tranquil Pearl Harbor to its core. Bay deftly captures the patriotism and the loss of innocence of the young men and women who were suddenly thrust into the war. Cuba Gooding, Jr., Jon Voight, Alec Baldwin and Mako also star in this tribute to both the fallen and the survivors of one of the most horrific tragedies ever to occur on American soil.

Customer Reviews

Among the top ranking . . .
. . . of the worst war films ever produced. The plot of this film is stretched so thin it almost breaks. It certainly broke me from seeing any more trite films like it. A hot pilot with poor vision stretches his career from illegally flying for the RAF [against the wrong model of Bf109] to being one of the two Warhawk pilots to get aloft during the Pearl Harbour attack to flying a Mitchell bomber in the propaganda raid against Tokyo! Along the way he meets, gains and loses the girl. Of course, he retrieves her again, but this is Hollywood. What else could happen?

As if the plot wasn't thin enough, some clown put Afleck in the lead role. Someone should find Afleck a proper day job - cleaning the heads, dumping the honey wagon or robbing graves. Anything but putting him before a camera and inflicting that flat excuse for characterisation on an unsuspecting public. None of the actors in this film are given a proper role, with the sole exception of Jon Voight. Poor old Dan Ackroyd would have been super as the intelligence officer Ellis Zacharias, even if he is a bit plump for the part. Instead, he plays some ephemeral naval officer championing the defense of Pearl instead of the Philippines or Marianas Islands. Alec Baldwin is slipped in as Jimmy Doolittle, a role that, given the story line, should have been the lead. But then, of course, all that romantic lead-up would have been wasted. As was Baldwin.

It's difficult to understand the intent in making this film. All sense of why the Japanese launched the attack is blithely omitted. Justified or not, we are left with only the "day of infamy" attitude. There's relevance in presenting that, but Japan didn't launch the War of the Pacific on a whim. Their purpose, in their view, was to prevent encirclement. No lessons are to be derived from the story or the events portrayed. There was heroism on both sides, but you'd never glean that from watching this. Yamamoto's American experience and misgivings are overlooked, except for a single line. The Emperor's role, which was significant, is also omitted. The United States was attacked, suffering a terrible blow. Any military historian will explain it was a blessing in disguise as attention was diverted from the ungainly battleships to more flexible carrier flotillas. All this film portrays are implausible characters, a love story so trite as to be nauseating, and a surfeit of violence. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Dire...
I am genuinely disgusted at how people can give this film a decent rating, for it is quite simply one of the worst movies ever created. Just recently it came second in BBC's Film 2003's poll of the biggest turkeys ever.

Essentially Pearl Harbor is one of those "give some idiot $100m and order him to produce a film which will cover those costs fourfold" type Hollywood blockbusters. In amongst the special effects (the only redeeming feature of this film) is the "script-by-numbers" love story, revolving around a couple of typical American Joes and some bint of a woman. The acting is lamentable; one can only speculate as to how anyone could allow this to be released on an unsuspecting public.

This is all pretty normal for Tinseltown though. What riles me is how unashamedly jingoistic this film is. Yes, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a tragic event, but then so were the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can bet your life Hollywood'll never make a film about them.
Also, as well as being a devastating blow to the US Navy, Pearl Harbor was deeply embarrassing for America. The completely unnecessary scenes where Tokyo is "revenged bombed" are a none-too-subtle way of saying "Yes, ya hurt us, but we're so great we're gonna open uppa can of whoopass on ya, yeehaw, the USA is so great and we sure paid those Japs back!" It's pathetic. The film title is "Pearl Harbor", not "Pearl Harbor and How We Got Them Back".

The Amazon reviewer did mention this, but there was an awkwardness when dealing with the Japanese. It's no-holds-barred when the English, or the French, or the Russians are concerned, but in the age of political correctness, and with America and Japan such huge economic allies these days it would be distasteful to portray them as, say, the British are portrayed in The Patriot (another astoundingly poor film). The truth was, however, that the Japanese were demonised terribly in America during World War Two. Since there was a large number of German heritage migrants in the country propaganda was more focused on "The Jap". Failing to address this in the movie is yet another example of Hollywood's distorted version of the truth.

Please, if you're even just considering seeing this movie, for the special effects, or the action: leave well alone. Get Rambo 3 out of the video store instead: there are explosions aplenty and at least you can laugh at the acute irony of the ending.

Well its one way of spending $100,000,000.00
I meant to go and see this film in the cinema, but never got round to it and I am very glad I didnt waste my money to see it. This is the WORST film I have seen in a long time. It fails to deliver on almost every level.

This film had such a huge budget that it had no excuse to fall down anywhere. Indeed, all persons involved have done films that I love and/or respect. Brockhiemer (Producer) and Bay (Director/Producer) have produced, together and individually some of the best action films of the '90s. All the main actors have done solid or even great performances. And Wallace (screenplay) cut his teeth with a worthy effort on Braveheart. However, all this experience just seemed to confuse everyone on the project.

The plot and scipt are shallow, static and cliche. This is hardly a good foundation. Michael Bay then seems to have no idea what he is doing with his cameras. Each scene is so short and uninformative there is no characterisation, and just giving everyone Southern accents doesnt mean they dont have character depth.

The action is the one thing that the Bay and Brockheimer duo should have got right, but even this doesnt cut it. While the special effects are the only positive thing (the cgi really is seemless). But Bay just points the camera rather flatly, sluggishly and very unoriginally at planes and explosions, or gives the camera a lot of shaking to imply that 'this is intense'.

The plot of the love triangle is so unexciting that really it just gets in the way. Just because they speak of love and sacrifice and emotional turmoil does not give even girly girls on a girls night in together an excuse to be sympathetic to it. And how does it get away with making obvious glorifications of suicide attacks, a thing for which the Kamikaze were historically condemned by the Amercians for being unethical. Was this just an implication of 'We did it first'.

All in all the writer, producers and directors seemed to watched half a dozen classic war films and taken any poinient moment and copied and stuck them all together thinking they would make 'a really poinient film'. Everything seems to have been seen before but so dummed down that a 10 year old might find it hard not to be bored.

I can definitely say that I do not think higly of this film. It is offensive even to the genre of the Blockbuster.

If you want a war film Saving Private Ryan, if you want a love film English Patient or Shakepsear in Love, and if you want action The Matrix... but this films does not deliver on ANY level.