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Pearl Harbor (Vista Series Director's Cut)

Pearl Harbor (Vista Series Director's Cut)

List Price: $39.99
Your Price: $35.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Remember Pearl Harbor...But Forget This Movie
Review: Disney looked at TITANIC and figured out a formula. Set a love story against the backdrop of an epic catastrophe and make a mountain of money. Unfortunately, the formula produced PEARL HARBOR.

The love story is beyond lame. The fly boy characters are leftover caricatures from TOP GUN. The beautiful nurse they fight over looks beautiful (and she is) but the script gives her nothing else to do. Ben Affleck looks at least ten years older than Josh Hartnett. The scene where a riled FDR rallies his war cabinet by rising from his wheelchair is bizarre and laughable. Casting Hollywood super-lib Alec Baldwin as WWII Jimmy Doolittle is insulting and borderline sacrilegious. The ending is ridiculous.
The 40-minute battle scene in middle of this mess is impressive but the rest is hackneyed and unbelievable. I'd heard that Disney, trying to cover all the bases, released a version to the Japanese that ended after the devastating attack--so they wouldn't be insulted if we reminded them we ultimately won WWII. No kidding. Every scene, every lame line appears crafted to make a buck.
....

The sad part is: the Vets deserved better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Movie, but Under Appreciated
Review: Twenty first century audiences have grown accustomed to anti-war movies, rather than war movies. I guess that's why this film was so hated. No, Pearl Harbor is not an ant-war film. But it's not a pro-war film either, if indeed there ever was such a thing. Everyone knows (except maybe for a few deranged dictators) that war is ugly and horrible. But this film isn't even ABOUT war per se. It's about the attack that brought the U.S. into the war. It's also about the spirit of the Greatest Generation.

This film is told from the American point of view, circa 1941. Some people think that's unfair, that the film isn't objective enough, or historically accurate enough. Well, maybe I've missed something. Like all Hollywood historical epics, sure it fudges here and there, but that isn't unusual at all. Most war movies pretend to be accurate, and they do this merely by taking a critical stance toward the U.S. Sorry folks, but cynicism and objectivity aren't the same thing.

No, this film isn't Saving Private Ryan. But the events in that film took place three years after Pearl Harbor, when Americans had suffered countless more deaths. Private Ryan depicted America deeply entrenched in a costly war, whereas Pearl Harbor was about the opening volley. Both films are great, but they really shouldn't be compared so much. They are about two different periods of time.

Moreover, Pearl Harbor was mostly about pilots. Private Ryan was about men in the infantry. It's obvious which one would be the darker and more gruesome of the two.

Hopefully, this film will be revisited with a more open mind.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful
Review: Should be renamed Ben Affleck fights WWII. Ben fights the Battle of Britain, Ben gets shot down and hides out with the French resistance, Ben escapes France and flies 1/2 way around the world and arrives in Hawaii one day before the Pearl Harbor attack. Ben then jumps into a fighter, even though he is still technically a civilian because he left the service to fight in the RAF, and then proceeds to shot down Japanese attackers. After a hard day of arial dog fights, Ben lands and proceeds to rescue trapped sailors at Pearl Harbor! To cap it all off Ben jumps into Jimmy Doolittle group to fly bombers (even though he is a fighter pilot) and attack Tokyo. I wonder why they left out Ben's contribution to the sinking of the Bismark and the Battles of El Alamein and Dunkirk?

Throw in a tedious and unbelievable love triangle and you have an over reaching big budget snoozer.

Special effects on the actual Pearl Harbor attack are very good, but hardly enough to make up for a terrible plot and equally terrible acting.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pearl Harbor
Review: This might not be the best movie ever made; the action scenes were confused, it was drawn-out, and the storyline certainly had flaws. But this movie was the first take on the event at Pearl Harbor that really hit home. I suddenly understood as I watched the movie that THIS REALLY HAPPENED, these people did die trapped underwater, they did go on this suicide mission, this is how things were. So I forgive Pearl Harbor for its flaws and recommend it. I especially liked how the movie showed the Japanese point of view; too many portrayals of war depict the US as the saintly power and other countries as jealous demons attempting to dethrone us.
This is a good movie for a rainy day with a few (at least 3 and a half) empty hours and a box of tissues.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's great, but a little to lovey-dovey.
Review: The Pearl Harbor movie is a great one I'll have to admit, but practically the entire movie is pretty much a romantic one. It's almost like a soap opera with the way that people are dating other peoples pregnant girlfriend and whatnot.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: ONE OF THE MOST IRRESPONSIBLE MOVIES EVER
Review: Stay away from this one. If you have to watch any of it just watch the special effects employed to reenact the Japanese attack.

Other than that, what you have here is a pathetic movie, a chick flick, that degrades one of the most serious and tragic events in our history. It deserves far more than a big-screen soap opera that is an insult to the memory of those who died at Pearl Harbor.

Add to that the fact that the producers, in order to pocket the largest profits possible, made a "Japanese-friendly" version for release in Japan and you have one of the most irresponsible movies ever made. Such irresponsibility by movie makers to soften what was nothing more than an unprovoked, cowardly attack on the part of the Japanese is criminal.

THE HORSEMAN

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ok and not ok
Review: Well what can you say the movie was great and bad at the same time. Being former military I have to say the love triangles and emotional part of the movie was a breath of fresh air, because I think more often than not people focus on the blood and guts of combat which is pretty much the realistic view of war, when most have not experienced or even come close to living or walking that path. A soldier is not just a killer seeing something in a movie besides our boys being blown to hell to me is not wrong or bad for a movie. Yet the way it was handled in this movie I just dont know. Historicaly speaking it was some what accurate give or take changeing a few identities into benwhoflec and butchering the real life army air corps pilots who took to the sky, just remember that it was not ben and josh who flew that day. Visual affects for the Pearl attack scene were done well, yet I guess contradicting myself I dont think they lived up to the brtality of the combat that took place that day. All in all it was a movie in my opinion worth seeing I think any movie about our boys is worth seeing to many people seem to forget this day in age why this country is still here becasue of the men in the uniform. So i guess this turned into more of a history/political review but I felt I shold put in my 2 cents.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: WAY TOO LONG...
Review: This movie spent way too much time on the love story aspect. I had a hard time getting through it. I've seen thousands of movies and I would have to say the only thing that interested me in this ENTIRE movie would have to be the attack scenes. Even if it has the historical inaccuracies (which it soooo does) the battle scene was well played out.

Beyond that it's just not worth watching. If I could give this movie no stars I would.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: good to some extent
Review: This movie was not bad; the flying sequences were good, the love scene was good and the attack itself was portrayed excellently, but the only problem lies in a whole lot of little things that were either wrong or unecassary. Such as the Doolittle raid scene.....what was the point of it!!!!!!!!.....and in history there was no pilot from pearl harbour who participated in the doolittle raid, and there was not a pilot who fought for the british and fought at pearl harbor..........................3/5

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The cinematography was amazing!
Review: I wasn't born yet the first time our country was attacked. So I learned about Pearl Harbor and WW II as I grew up from my family and school teachers. As I got older I learned more about the war and the attack on Hawaii. Each time I saw various documentaries or movies that included the attack it amazed me that we were caught with our pants down so long ago. AND just a few months ago a similar event took place in my home state.

BUT I saw all the news clips and film trailers about "Pearl Harbor" and I waited to see the movie for myself. Having seen "Saving Private Ryan" in the movies the first time it came out I chose to wait for "Pearl Harbor" to come on video to see it.

Ben Afleck and Josh Harnett portrayed the two young men who became pilots just in time for the war. They also vied for the affections of a nurse played by Kate Beckinsale. While the beginning of the movie was a bit slow it picked up when they were sent overseas.

However-when the actual attack on Pearl Harbor started I was startled. Even though I knew it was going to happen, watching and hearing it was entirely different. The cinematography was amazing. Whether it was from the air or the ground, from the land or the sea, each bomb, each torpedo, each explosion showed me what it must have been like that awful morning.

Cuba Gooding Jr made another good appearance in this film. Portraying a cook who went topside during the bombing and armed a machine gun-something he wasn't really allowed to do because he was black. Jon Voight made a brief appearance as President Franklin D Roosevelt.

I look forward to watching the movie again when I can sit in one place to watch it from end to end. Yes even though I had rented the video I still wasn't able to watch it all in one sitting. But I would recommend this film also.


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