‘Pearl’: Staid romance detracts from vivid battle

Geoff Carter

Friday, May 25, 2001 | 9:11 a.m.

Pearl Harbor

Grade: **

Starring: Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Jon Voight.

Screenplay: Randall Wallace.

Director: Michael Bay.

Rated: PG-13 for sustained intense war sequences, images of wounded, brief sensuality and some language.

Running time: 182 minutes.

Playing at: UA Showcase 8, UA Rainbow Promenade 10, Century Orleans, Century Suncoast, Century Cinedome 12 Henderson, Rancho Santa Fe 16, Regal Cinemas Boulder Station, Regal Cinemas Sunset Station, Regal Cinemas Colonnade 14, Regal Cinemas Texas Station 18.

If I were to write reviews the way producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay make movies, this review of the World War II epic "Pearl Harbor" would be triple the length of the usual review. It would boast quotable but empty dialogue (as if that's such a big change), cut from one paragraph to the next without punctuation, have a volley of cool explosions in the second act and an ending that neither satisfies nor closes the story. And the Sun's features department would have to pay me $100 million to produce it, bare minimum.

Like last year's "The Patriot" -- a departure for "Independence Day" producer Roland Emmerich -- "Pearl Harbor" finds Bruckheimer attempting to grow his craft against a non-fiction, serious backdrop. There's only one thing wrong with the idea -- Bruckheimer and Bay are the same by-the-number thugs that made the awful "Armageddon," which was a travesty of storytelling and science, and "The Rock," a middling action film redeemed only by sharp performances by Nicholas Cage, Ed Harris and Sean Connery. "Pearl Harbor" suffers the same faults as those (money-making) efforts; see the opening paragraph, and pay up.

Rather than center the narrative on the December 1941 raid that brought the United States into the war, "Pearl Harbor" follows the fortunes of Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett), two hayseeds who become crack combat pilots. Between the two of them comes Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale), a winsome nurse with a penchant for bikini tops and miniskirts. The actual Pearl Harbor raid comes near the middle of this three-hour (!!!) film, unfolds more or less in real time -- and pretty much wipes away any memory of anything that happens before or after it.

It has as much to do with the visual effects, sound-effect editing and production design being flawless as with Randall Wallace's script being forgettable. Industrial Light and Magic has reset the bar with its work on "Pearl Harbor": It provided what may well be the most convincing dogfight and bombing footage ever put on film. Fireballs glow like little suns; Japanese planes spin and dive like angry wasps; hardware is thrown, twisted and turned every which way.

It is a harrowing sequence -- perhaps not as harrowing (or accurate) as the much-studied opening of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," but it nevertheless does the job. You feel every gunshot and explosion in your solar plexus; you get dizzy standing on the deck of capsizing battleships. And you feel every loss, even as Bruckheimer and Bay are running around kicking butt and defying verisimilitude. They're enjoying it -- as much as an earthbound "Star Wars."

If only the effects could speak for themselves -- the script certainly can't speak for them. Wallace's script is cliche-ridden and embarrassing. "Ma'am, don't take mah wings," Affleck begs Beckinsale at his medical exam, while Beckinsale muses, "He did have a very cute butt." A talented stable of supporting actors, including Dan Aykroyd as a code-breaker, Tom Sizemore as a Army mechanic (if the poor guy wasn't typecast before, this should do it) and Cuba Gooding Jr. as heroic chef's mate "Dorie" Miller do what they can with what little ammunition they're given. They're the lucky ones.

Affleck, Beckinsale and Hartnett are saddled with the big guns and nearly perish under their weight. Affleck routinely loses his dialect, Beckinsale has little to do but pout and Hartnett does so much squinting you wonder if he's fearful of flying debris.

Bay is obviously uncomfortable with actors, and in the absence of more experienced talents like Jon Voight -- a real sensation as Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- he fails his talent at crucial moments. The soft-focus and slow-motion coverage on Beckinsale as she deals with invasion casualties robs her of her emotions. And watch for a brief moment in which Affleck examines the blood-soaked cockpit of a plane he'll be flying in the Battle of Britain; Bay cuts away from Affleck before the actor can emote.

"Pearl Harbor" is enjoyable as a matinee, and would be doubly entertaining trimmed of a half-hour. But I can't help but wonder if Bay and Bruckheimer have done the memory of this historical tragedy more harm than good. War is not "Armageddon"; it is a horribly unfortunate step into a place where there can be no real good, just minimized loss. By making the raid into the backdrop for a hackneyed romance, the filmmakers only justify the expense of making the film. They don't begin to pay the real cost of telling the story.