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Pearl Harbor
Buena Vista Pictures


6.4

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 99 votes
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FILM:

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

Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, William Lee Scott, Alec Baldwin, Catherine Kellner, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Jon Voight

Against the backdrop of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, two friends (Affleck, Hartnett) find themselves drawn into the war and in love with the same woman (Beckinsale).

GENRE(S):	War
WRITTEN BY:	Randall Wallace
DIRECTED BY:	Michael Bay
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 4, 2001 Video: December 4, 2001 Theatrical: May 25, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	178 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The film's immense cast and crew, headed by director Michael Bay, writer Randall Wallace and stars Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, blend artistry and technology to create a blockbuster entertainment that has passion, valor and tremendous action.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The cast is engaging, the overall visual effects are tremendous and I found myself fairly swept away for most of the fast-moving, three-hour running time.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The film never quite hits a sure-footed stride. The fictional love story stays fictional. But ''Pearl Harbor'' delivers the main event.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It expertly capitalizes on the emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of art.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Until a disappointing tailspin in the last hour, Pearl Harbor is the best piece of popular entertainment to come along in years.

Newsweek David Ansen

Ninety minutes into this massive movie the attack commences, and the spectacular images come hurtling like fireballs. This is, let's be honest, what we're here for, and what most Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movies serve up best: the poetry of destruction.

Film.com Sean Means

Parts of this three-hour World War II epic are brilliant -- especially the 40-minute sequence in which the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor is stunningly re-created.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The picture is nearly painstaking in its traditionalism, a tale of love, war, and valor in which nostalgia for ''simpler times'' gets mashed together, almost fetishistically, with nostalgia for old movies and for the spirit of knightly self sacrifice during World War II.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A movie meant to explode off the screen -- and it's at its best when those explosions are going full blast.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Works best as a bang-and- boom action picture, a loud symphony of bombardment and explosion juiced up with frantic editing and shiny computer-generated imagery.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

It's war porn, a movie that revels in the carnage.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

For all its agonizing true-life trappings, has the staying power of a grand-scale video game. Manhattan's sushi bars are in no danger of going dark.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's a Ritalin-deprived sensibility, but it keeps you skating over the dull spots, in which the film unfortunately is rich.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A crowd-pleasing blockbuster if ever there was one, features as its centerpiece a jaw-droppingly vivid re-creation of the Japanese attack on the U.S.'s fabled (and extremely vulnerable, as it turned out) Pacific fleet.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

"Pearl Harbor" is exactly the kind of prestige project you'd expect from a director like Bay, hitting all its targets with plodding precision and never once achieving surprise.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The 2,400 Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor deserve a nobler memorial than this sentimental hogwash that reduces heroism to "Top Gun" antics and pretty cinematography.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The filmmakers would have been better advised to stick with the Zeroes and spend less time making up heroes.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A script with the most underdeveloped characters and spectacularly realized visuals since "Titanic."

USA Today Mike Clark

It's an extravaganza worth seeing once -- and maybe later on DVD.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

With all the obvious work that went into this beautifully detailed, giant-scale movie, and considering the historical importance of the subject matter, was it too much to ask for a trace of intelligence, or maturity, or even insight?

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Unfortunately, the bulk of the three-hour epic is third-rate schmaltz that pays only lip service to history.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film has no soul. An epic about this day of infamy should shake you to the core. But the real infamy about Pearl Harbor is that when you exit, you don't feel a thing.

Slate David Edelstein

I found "Pearl Harbor" annoying but not excruciating—even at three hours, it's less assaultive than either "The Mummy Returns" or "Moulin Rouge."

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

What comes before and after the sound and fury of the bombing raid are reams of banal dialogue.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

A Michael Bay movie: bang bang, paper-thin characters, wooden screenplay.

Time Richard Schickel

The net result of this mighty effort is perhaps predictable: near total inconsequence.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

If you decide to hit the concessions stand (where you're bound to have lots of company), I'd suggest going out for popcorn during either the first hour or the third, because the second features some pretty good big-screen effects involving planes, ships, and explosions.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The chaos is convincing, but, less ruthless than Steven Spielberg, Bay eschews D-day panic and mutilation.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Just compare their superficiality to the complex characters in "From Here to Eternity" and what's missing here becomes terribly clear.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Perhaps they should have called this "Bore-a, Bore-a, Bore-a."

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

A brain-dead buddy-movie tearjerker with semi-tasteful romance and tasteful gore mixed in with the derring-do.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Fiction and fantasy to evade reflection on the world we actually live in.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Littered with low points -- lame comedy, dubious history, fumbling drama and a love story so inept as to make a pacifist long for war.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 99 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jared C. gave it a0:
I prefer war genre's, and this is a good choice, but comparing it to Behind Enemy Lines, U-571, and Saving Private Ryan, this is an embarresment, it was worked out the most terrible way possible, I hated absolutely everything in it.

Gerron K. gave it a9:
"Pearl Harbor" is an intricately made war movie. Forget the superficial romance and the especially bad dialogue in the first 30 minutes of the movie. It gives an intense perspective of what happened on that fateful day and what happened after. I enjoyed the movie a whole lot. It may have been 30 minutes shorter, but as it is it works.

Koen D. gave it a1:
Ridiculous movie. Worst movie I've seen in my entire life.

Dan R. gave it a2:
Armageddon, in its blend of ridiculous action sequences and tear-jerking, sopping sentimentality is perhaps bearable as escapist entertainment because of its science fiction premise. What is so offensive about this film is it's attempt to apply a similar kind of blind action movie for the guys/shallow romance for the chicks aesthetic to an actual, tragic event. Only Cuban Gooding's acting, the production values of the main attack sequence, and the depiction of the intelligence and communication failures that could have prevented the disaster deserve some credit. The rest is insulting.

Don H. gave it a5:
Attack on Pearl first-rate, gut-wrenching. All else maudlin at best. Oddly, all leads are unconvincing save at times Cuba Gooding Jr, as if there was no rehearsal, and nearly all 'minor' parts convincing. Nice bit by Jennifer Garner as a frenzied nurse, some inspired shots of children at play watching in bewilderment as Japanese bombers approaching the harbor fly low over them.

[Anonymous] gave it a6:
Lame love relationship, lame love triangle. Dumb speeches. The intense battle scenes thrills, and even raises a little patriotism. However, you're still looking at putting up with three hours of dumb scmaltz for fourty minutes of the best action you can get. Not a lot of reward for the work.

Kyle A. gave it a 2:
Avoid Ben Affleck like the plagued!

Pearl Harbor Buena Vista Pictures

Pearl Harbor
Buena Vista Pictures