Thirty-five minutes of spectacle bracketed by 90 minutes of wartime-romance cliches and a cynical attempt to get some rah-rah into a story that's otherwise one hell of a downer by ending not on the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but with the first US retaliatory strike against Japan. Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace: The film abounds with green recruits who remind seasoned officers of themselves as youngsters, dying men asking if they're going to make it, and wee dogs escaping what appears to be certain death. Like the epic TORA! TORA! TORA! (1970), it works up slowly to the Japanese ...
Released:
2001
Rated:
PG-13
Length:
170 mins