When Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor was released in 2001, audiences expected an epic World War II film capturing the heartbreak and heroism of the infamous attack on December 7, 1941.
What they received instead was a sprawling, melodramatic love story masquerading as a war film.
Many fans and critics alike have since labelled it as one of the worst World War II films ever made.
The film follows best friends Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) as they navigate love, war, and betrayal amidst a fictionalised version of the attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath.
At the heart of the story is a love triangle involving Rafe, Danny, and nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale), whose lives intersect in increasingly contrived and overwrought ways.
Viewers have not held back in their criticism.
One audience member recently took to an online forum lamenting: “I hated that film. It felt more like a romance film that takes place during the war.” Another confirmed: “It’s that bad.”
Another viewer highlighted the film’s historical inaccuracies, observing: “During the attack scene, you can clearly see warships from the 1970s, flight decks and all, being blown up.”
The pacing of the film also came under fire. “How to fit a 90-minute story into a 150-minute movie,” one viewer quipped, pointing to the bloated runtime that struggles to balance a love story with epic war sequences.
Film critic Roger Ebert also eviscerated the film, stating: “Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centrepiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality.
“The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them.”
Ebert’s review reflects the sentiment of many who felt the film prioritised spectacle over substance, squandering its potential as a meaningful war drama.