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War is hell! So is romance, sometimes. Those are the lessons audiences are likely to take away from the blockbuster epic Pearl Harbor. Oh, and that anyone who messes with America has another thing coming. Well you didn't expect subtlety from the man who directed Armageddon, did you?

Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) are two best friends from Tennessee who dream of being fighter pilots. They also dream of beautiful women. In the U.S. military, they find both. Rafe, the more outgoing of the two, meets Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), who happens to be a naval nurse. After a round of vaccinations and a bloody nose, the two fall madly in love. Unfortunately, Rafe has already volunteered to go to Britain and fight alongside the RAF. On the night before he's about to be shipped out, Evelyn offers to sleep with Rafe, but he nobly refuses--"I want to know that the best part of my life is still ahead." What he doesn't know is that the best part of his life will have to wait until after he's shot down over the cliffs of Dover.

Thinking that Rafe is dead, Evelyn and Danny turn to each other for comfort. By this time, they're both stationed at Pearl Harbor, and the beautiful Hawaiian sunsets and their own grief bring them together as more than just friends. But what happens if Rafe turns up again?

The film's love story, or should I say 'stories,' takes up the film's first 90 minutes. In that respect, Pearl Harbor echoes back to its obvious influence, Titanic. Since the audience knows what awaits on Dec. 7, the importance of the movie's first half (like Titanic, Pearl Harbor clocks in at three hours) is to give us heroes to root for once the carnage is unleashed. On that level, it succeeds.

Ben Affleck (Bounce) is extremely winning with his good looks and boyish charm. He effortlessly evokes an era when a soldier might actually refuse a one-night stand. Kate Beckinsale, who burst into view with her striking performance in Cold Comfort Farm, is both glamorous and likable, though she has the unenviable task of reciting love letters that are truly insipid ("when I see the sunset, I think of you"). Josh Hartnett (Here On Earth) has the hardest role as the second fiddle, but his brooding intensity fits his character.

Pearl Harbor's emotional success depends almost exclusively on its three leads. Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Men of Honor) is featured prominently in the trailer, but his character is merely a cipher designed to lure African Americans into the theater. He gets a boxing match and a brief shoot-out with a Japanese plane, and that's it. 

Not that Alec Baldwin (as Col. Doolittle) or Jon Voigt (as President Roosevelt) do much better. Baldwin in particular is saddled with some of the most banal monologues of recent memory ("we might lose this battle, but we're going to win the war"). His line deliveries can't begin to compensate for the cliches he's forced to spout.

Faring better are Ewen Bremner and James King (don't be fooled by King's first name; she's a well-known and beautiful model) as a cute-as-a-button couple. He's gawky and stutters; she's naive and lovely.

As you might expect, though, the most impressive thing about Pearl Harbor is the 30-minute sequence of the actual bombing. The combination of actual explosions and impressive computer effects is startling. I have no idea what Dec. 7, 1941 was actually like, but the movie convincingly portrays the horrors of war. All of this is done without the spurting blood and severed heads of Saving Private Ryan. The only gruesome moments, in the hospital where Evelyn works, are diminished by being shot out of focus.

Director Michael Bay, whose movies Armageddon and The Rock have been infamous for their rapid-style editing, is a little more measured here, at least until the climactic battle scenes. The same cannot be said of Randall Wallace's script or Hans Zimmer's score, which are over-the-top in the worst ways.

The first two hours of Pearl Harbor are quite watchable, though lacking in subtlety. But the final 50 minutes are unbearable as the focus switches to Doolittle's raid on Tokyo. As one wag put it, it's as if Kate Winslet's character in Titanic returned to defeat the iceberg. I do find it strange that a movie that so closely models itself on Titanic feels the need to have a long denouement of victory. Didn't producer Jerry Bruckheimer learn that audiences are willing to watch (again and again!) a bittersweet ending?

The result in Pearl Harbor is unfortunately very bitter indeed. Affleck and Hartnett, who handle the film's early saccharine, can't stomach the ludicrous vomit they're forced to regurgitate in the movie's final reel. The movie even has the audacity to assert that the Doolittle raid was the turning point in the war, as if the breaking of the Japanese encryption codes and the resulting victory at Midway had no effect. But I guess that emphasis is what we'd expect from a movie with all brawn and few brains.

J. Robert Parks 5/24/2001