Hey folks, Harry here... If you were at this screening last night... WRITE IN! I want to hear your thoughts on PEARL HARBOR. Is the film headed in the right direction? What bugged you? What did you love? How did it go? Inquiring minds like mine wanna know. The script had quite a bit of potential for a large scale war epic... and from the sound of this first review... seems like Bay is on the right track with it. Here ya go... BEWARE OF SPOILERS!
Hey Harry-
I just got back from seeing Pearl Harbor on our 3 1/2 story screen here in the Mile High City tonight. 600 people packed the auditorium for the first look at the new movie from Director Michael Bay. It was emphasized that this was a rough cut with temp music (used Gladiator, Cast Away, Legends of the Fall, etc.) My first impression is that this film is still early in it's editing, but they have a lot of excellent material to work with.
First off, this cut clocked in at just short of 3 hours. It is split up into three very distinct parts. Hour one is the building up of the characters and the relationships between everyone. Affleck and Hartnett are best friends and have been since childhood. They even join the military together- and Affleck falls in love with a nurse (Beckinsale.) He subsequently volunteers for duty on the front in England and is shot down. Presumed dead, Hartnett falls in love with Beckinsale. Note I said "presumed"- figure it out. You also see detailed plans by the Japanese admirals and how they collected much of their intelligence about Pearl Harbor. There is a lot of character development for this first hour.
The second hour: Hell descends. The Japanese attack and dear lord, it is a solid hour of explosions, death, chaos in the hospitals, trying to mobilize a defense, and the true destruction of an entire fleet. There were several unfinished effects from this point on in the film, but overall- looking very nice and very tight throughout the disaster.
The third hour: The aftermath and revenge. Roosevelt's speeches, the retaliation on Tokyo, bringing all of the characters back together and tying up of loose ends.
Things to watch for- Bay has used a very strange method of filming the scenes in the hospitals during the attack. Everything is intentionally out of focus and then suddenly sharp focuses on one person in the scene. it's a little difficult to watch, but it really brings you into the confustion.
Cuba Gooding Jr.- Watch for him. if you blink, you'll miss him. He's been relegated to being onscreen for at most 8 to 10 minutes. But he owns those minutes.
Overall, this is a very cool movie. Action and war for the guys and romance and drama for the women. It can use a little cutting to tighten the pacing a touch, but it sure is beautiful to watch.
Call me "The Patriot." :-)
