Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour is the antithesis of James Cameron's Titanic, a failed attempt to cater to the same sort of audience and deliver a movie that blended technical brilliance with a heartfelt love story. Unsurprisingly, Bay lacked the lightness of touch to handle the romantic elements, and the love triangle premise involving Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Harnett was widely criticised due to its corny nature and Affleck's terrible performance in particular. It's as goofy as any film Bay has made, is at 183 minutes at least an hour too long, and completely fudges the historical facts of the day. That said, the attack sequence on Pearl Harbour itself is an outstanding set-piece and easily one of the best in Bay's repertoire. There's absolutely no subtlety to his approach, but the bombast is appropriate in depicting the absolute, destructive horror of the attack: soldiers are wiped out before they have a chance to react, and Bay envisions this spectacularly with gorgeous POV shots of both the missiles and enemy planes barreling into ships. It's as breathtaking a sequence as Bay has ever filmed, and though everything else around it is irredeemably terrible, at least he got the most important part right. Are there any other awful films you can find a silver lining in? Let us know in the comments!
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
