Why does everyone hate Pearl Harbour?

Yes, the Bay flick. And this is an honest question, by the way. I actually don't get the hate. I mean I don't own it or hold any particular feelings toward it, but I've always thought it was entertaining, at least enough to watch it when it was on TV. I thought the actual Pearl Harbour attack and battle was well executed, though I'm not sure of the actual historics of it or if that's the problem. The acting seems decent enough to me, although I'm often not the best gauge of that.

But yeah, I know at least one of you must be dying to explain.

 

It was advertised as a war film, but it's more a love story with the war as a backdrop... a bad love story at that.

 

I thought you were talking about the boxer that got knocked the **** out in Ong Bak.

 

This thread is deja vu

I don't know about Pearl Harbour, but Pearl Harbor sucked because it was trying to be like Titanic: a wannabe epic love story with a historical event in the backdrop. Heck, it even tried to go further with that formula by having a friggin' love song during the end credits...except it was Faith Hill doing the singing and not that one chick from Canada who looks like a horse.

Titanic was trying to be like Gone with the Wind, but the reason why Titanic worked was because of the 60+ year gap between the two movies. There was only a 4-year gap between Titanic and Pearl Harbor...which made the latter feel even more like trite Hollywood crap where Michael Bay relied on ILM to make his movie watchable.

 

Here's a brief list of complaints:

It's poorly conceived.

It's poorly written.

It's largely hackneyed and contrived.

The love story is never convincing enough to be believable.

The "acting" is mediocre at best.

So much melodrama.

There are issues of historical inaccuracy that serve too little artistic purpose to be considered "artistic license" and which thus indicate laziness on the behalf of the film makers.

The movie is jingoistic.

The movie is racist.

It's greatest sin is that it is completely unnecessary. Every wartime incident covered in the film was covered, either adequately or superbly, in films like Tora, Tora, Tora, and 30 Seconds over Tokyo.

The one thing I will give the film, and I use the term lightly, is that it is occasionally beautifully, and brilliantly, photographed, but much the same could be said for most of Michael Bay's pre-Transformers output.

So, those are my thoughts on the matter.

 

because josh hartnett died.

 

Titanic wannabe.

Historically inaccurate.

HORRIBLE acting.


But awesome enough that it has it's own song about how much it sucks.

 

Frankly I didn't think Titanic was that good either.

But both movies are great if you just want to see people dying horribly, whether it's getting blown away by a torpedo or striking a propeller on your way into the icy atlantic.

 

Ben Affleck

 

The term "Jap" was deemed too derogatory for use in the film, so the more culturally sensitive "Japsucker" was used instead.

 

Alanis? Oh noes, there are two horse-women singers from Canada.

 

Clean propaganda.

Bay wasnt even trying to be subtle about it.

 

I know I enlisted for the Kamakaze squadron after watching the movie.

 

For certain kinds of movies, it's just as essential that you "cast" the right director as it is that you cast the right actors for the roles. Well, whatever Michael Bay's strengths are as a director, and he does have some, handling historical drama and love stories are not among them.

I can think of a number of directors who would have been more appropriate for this material about a seminal event in American history. Can you? If he had not already retired from directing at the time, I think Irvin Kershner would have done a great job. Or Sydney Pollack. Or Barry Levinson. Or Mike Nichols. Frank Darabont. Richard Donner. There's a lot of decent, solid directors in Hollywood that could have handled Pearl Harbor better. And a lot of those people whose names I just pulled out of the air would have damn well insisted on a better script.

Regarding historical accuracy, it could have been worse. If Oliver Stone had done Pearl Harbor, my god, can you imagine?

I'm not a hater of Michael Bay, but again, he was the wrong guy for this particular job.

 

I know, I was laughing during the ending sequence as bay was assuming no one knew anything about the WWII Pacific theatre.

 

It took too long to get to the point, just like Titanic.

 

Point?

What point?

 

I had to chuckle over people saying it was trying to be Titanic.

I thought that movie totally over rated and never saw the appeal and Leo just never did anything for me.

 

See this YouTube video. I think it sums it up appropriately.

Here's they lyrics:

I miss you more then Michael Bay missed the mark
When he made Pearl Harbor
I miss you more than that movie missed the point
And that?s an awful lot girl
And now, now you?ve gone away
And all I?m trying to say is
Pearl Harbor sucked, and I miss you

I need u like Ben Affleck needs acting school
He was terrible in that film
I need u like Cuba Gooding needed a bigger part
He?s way better than Ben Affleck
And now all I can think about is your smile
and that ****** movie too
Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you

Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?
I guess Pearl Harbor sucked
Just a little bit more than I miss you

I love Team America.

 

John Voigt as FDR was somewhat amusing

 

Like it or not, Michael Bay was trying to make his own Titanic.

 

Probably because it was just plain terrible.

 

The attack on Pearl Harbour is well done. That's about it.