‘Pearl Harbor’ a titanic flop

In theaters

PEARL HARBOR. Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Randall Wallace. 183 minutes. Rated PG-13.

“Pearl Harbor,” the $135 million, three-hour pseudo-epic film from Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer (“Armageddon,” “The Rock”), may not be boring, but it certainly is banal, a cinematic bomber armed with sap that’s so desperately modeled after James Cameron’s “Titanic,” one half expects Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to make soaring cameos midway through.

Still, unlike Cameron’s superior epic, don’t expect “Pearl Harbor” to take home any gold medals come next March.

The film, which freely pilfers from a host of other movies – especially “Top Gun,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Star Wars,” “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and “From Here to Eternity” – is never anything more than a connect-the-dot blueprint for box office success, a blatant piece of marketing whose seams are so obvious, they rub against the screen.

With only a passing interest in the historic event it uses as its backdrop, director Bay’s film eschews historical accuracy in favor of the romantic triangle slumming at its core.

To be sure, “Pearl Harbor” has less to do with exploring the reasons why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor (audiences are treated to a white-washed, Japan-friendly, Cliff’s Notes version soaked in nostalgia) than it does with the contrived relationships between childhood buddies Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett), and the Navy nurse, Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), who steals their hearts.

These relationships – not to mention the dialogue they inspire – are responsible for much of the film’s ongoing absurdity. Indeed, as “Pearl Harbor” bleeds across the screen like one of its many corpses, audiences are hammered with prose so purple, it might be mistaken for a bruise: “We’re not anxious to die – just anxious to matter!”; “If I had one more night to live, I’d want to spend it with you”; “I sit every night and watch the sun set and try to draw the last bit of warmth from it, and send it to you.”

Exactly how does one do that? Never mind. What’s more curious is how one delivers any of this with a straight face. Somehow, probably through sheer ambition and determination, the cast manages to do so, but they never manage to make us believe a word of it, which gets to the heart of the film’s utter lack of soul.

Some will say that soul isn’t what “Pearl Harbor” the movie is all about, and they’d be right. What the film is about – and the main reason people are spending money to see it – is its re-enactment of the attack that led to our involvement in World War II.

In this respect, Bay succeeds, offering a stirring, 40-minute battle sequence that rains down at the film’s 90-minute mark. Technically, he offers nothing new – a good deal of it looks like a fantastic video game – but for what it is, it’s rousing and comes just at the right moment. After suffering through some of the most forced, cliched relationships ever tossed onto a movie screen – all of which are punctuated by Hans Zimmer’s bloated score – it’s almost a strange, ironic pleasure to see Japan bomb Pearl Harbor.

About the Japanese: The film’s strongest comment against their involvement comes from President Roosevelt (John Voight) himself; the film incorporates his “day of infamy” speech to powerful effect. Otherwise, in an effort to offend no one – certainly not those who will be buying tickets to see a version of the film on their own shores – Bay and screenwriter Randall Wallace present the Japanese as a people who did just what they had to do to protect their own interests and to ensure that they didn’t run out of oil after the U.S. cut them off. There’s never a mention of world domination.

This sanitized treatment of history runs counter to last year’s better film, “The Patriot,” which made international headlines when it infuriated the British with its more truthful look at their part in the American Revolution. Bay shies away from the truth – and in so doing, he insults the men and women who gave their lives in Pearl Harbor. Cuba Gooding Jr. does appear as Dorie Miller, the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross, but he’s on screen so fleetingly, his story – and thus the black experience – barely becomes more than a footnote amid all the computer-generated explosions.

The end – and the end here involves Col. Jimmy Dolittle’s (Alec Baldwin) suicidal raid on Tokyo-“Pearl Harbor” – is so caught up in the nostalgia of the time, it only sees through cheese cloth.

Coming 60 years after Japan’s attack, it is Hollywood’s response to less-angry times; we’ve come to terms with Japan and it shows. That’s great for the United States and Japan, but for a film that purports to be about a specific day in history, that history is stretched in an all-out effort to stretch your entertainment dollar.

Grade: D+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.