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Pearl Harbor (2001)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writer (WGA):
Randall Wallace (written by)
Release Date:
25 May 2001 (USA)
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Tagline:
It takes a moment to change history. It takes love to change lives. more
Plot:
Pearl Harbor follows the story of two best friends, Rafe and Danny, and their love lives as they go off to join the war. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Pearl Harbor
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Friend
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Best Friend
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Nurse
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Pilot
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Awards:
Won Oscar.
Another 10 wins
&
34 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(337 articles)
The Making of The Wolfman
(From Beyond Hollywood. 20 November 2009, 11:04 AM, PST)
Veteran Editors Being Brought in to Save Universal's Wolfman
(From FirstShowing.net. 18 November 2009, 10:10 AM, PST)
(From Beyond Hollywood. 20 November 2009, 11:04 AM, PST)
Veteran Editors Being Brought in to Save Universal's Wolfman
(From FirstShowing.net. 18 November 2009, 10:10 AM, PST)
User Comments:
Sappy love story, inaccurate history -- In short, *avoid*
more (1917 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only) more
Additional Details
Also Known As:
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for sustained intense war sequences, images of wounded, brief sensuality and some language.
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
183 min | USA:184 min (director's cut)
Country:
Colour:
Colour (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.20 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Taiwan:PG-12 |
Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) |
Canada:14A (British Columbia) |
Canada:AA (Ontario) |
Canada:G (Quebec) |
Canada:PA (Manitoba) |
Canada:PG (Alberta) |
Iceland:12 |
Malaysia:U |
Brazil:12 |
Argentina:Atp |
Australia:MA (director's cut) |
Australia:M |
Chile:TE |
Finland:K-15 |
France:U |
Germany:12 (f) (w) |
Germany:16 (f) (director's cut) |
Hong Kong:IIA |
India:U |
Ireland:12PG (original rating) |
Ireland:12 (video rating) |
Netherlands:12 |
New Zealand:M (original rating) |
New Zealand:R16 (director's cut) |
Norway:15 |
Peru:PT |
Singapore:PG |
South Korea:12 |
Spain:7 |
Sweden:11 |
Sweden:15 (director's cut) |
Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) |
Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) |
UK:12 |
USA:PG-13 |
USA:R (director's cut)
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
The first scene of the film to be shot was the boxing match involving Dorie Miller (Cuba Gooding Jr.), followed by the introduction of Admiral Kimmel (Colm Feore). In this scene, all the sailors in the background are real sailors in full uniform; they also played the extras in the boxing match scene.
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Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: The gas flame used to simulate muzzle flash can be seen in a Japanese AA gun.
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Quotes:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
How long is America going to pretend, that the world is not at war? From Berlin, Rome and Tokyo, were have been described as a nation of weaklings and playboys who hire British or Russian, or Chinese soldiers, to do our fighting for us. We've been trained to think we're invincible...
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in It's a Boy Girl Thing (2006)
more
Soundtrack:
Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol Me)
more
FAQ
How much sex, violence, and profanity are in this movie?What aspects of the film are historically accurate?
Are the guns used in the film historically accurate?
more
more (1917 total)
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I heard about this film while it was in production. I heard about how they were going to go out of their way to get all the right aircraft to film so things would look right. I heard how they wanted everything to look as authentic as possible. I heard that the movie would somehow encompass the Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, and the Doolittle Raid (??? - an early warning sign). I heard that they were going to stage the premiere on an aircraft carrier moored in Pearl Harbor, for an audience of Second World War veterans. They even managed to get one of the veterans attending the premiere to say complimentary things about the movie. I knew that special effects technology had advanced enormously since 1970, allowing the filming of things that would have been impossible in the previous big-budget movie about Pearl Harbor, Tora Tora Tora.
So I thought "Given all this, how bad can it be?".
The answer, unfortunately, is AWFUL. This may not be Hollywood at its worst, but it's pretty close.
I don't know the origin of the phrase "Titanic with bombs" for describing this film, but it's pretty apt. One difference is that Bay and Bruckheimer together don't add up to James Cameron. Both films feature trite, sappy, predictable love stories (with every chestnut in the Hollywood Cliché guide clearly in evidence) layered over a real-life, tragic event. However, although I don't particularly like Titanic, I have some respect for Cameron's success in reproducing the appearance of the RMS Titanic and the events of the Titanic sinking on screen. I am prepared to watch Titanic (while fast-forwarding over the love story bits) just to see the history parts.
Pearl Harbor fails this test. The portion of the film featuring the attack on Pearl Harbor comes off like a video game -- Lots of sound and fury, but no realism whatsoever. The problem here is that this is not only a real event, but an event of pivotal importance in the history of the United States. Worse yet, the event is still within living memory. How will we feel in 2061, when a director decides to make a movie about September 11, 2001, and casually re-arranges the events of that day to make the resulting film "more entertaining/more commercial/more appealing to mass audiences"? Do you feel sick even contemplating that possibility? That's how I suspect that veterans of the actual attack on Pearl Harbor feel about this movie. The late Brigadier General Kenneth Taylor, one of the pilots who did in real life what Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett portray on screen described the film as "a piece of trash...over-sensationalized and distorted."
Watch Tora Tora Tora instead. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty accurate telling of what really happened at Pearl Harbor. (Tellingly, Tora, Tora, Tora used veterans like General Taylor as advisers to make sure that they got most of the details right). A newer film with improved special effects is not necessarily a better film.