Pearl Harbor: No smoking, no racism, no clue

Michael Bay's WW2 blockbuster shows how the Americans bombed Tokyo to resolve a love triangle between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale
Pearl Harbor
'Pearl Harbor sucked, and I miss you' ... sorry, different movie. Anyway, here's Ben Affleck. Photo: Kobal

Director: Michael Bay
Entertainment grade: D
History grade: C

  1. Pearl Harbor
  2. Production year: 2001
  3. Country: USA
  4. Cert (UK): 12
  5. Runtime: 182 mins
  6. Directors: Michael Bay
  7. Cast: Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Tom Sizemore
  8. More on this film

On 7 December 1941, the Japanese navy devastated the American Pacific fleet in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The raid killed 2,403 people, and dragged the United States into World War II.

Michael Bay's film attempted to turn the attack on Pearl Harbor into a love story, adding for good measure the Battle of Britain beforehand, the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo afterwards, and a lot of explosions.


Pearl Harbor

Ben Affleck stars as the fictional Rafe McCawley, a plucky USAF pilot who sees action in all three of the film's battles. That's impossible, for a start: the Eagle Squadrons in the Battle of Britain only accepted civilian Americans. Cue some scenes in Britain, a cold place full of beer, stately homes, and obsequious officers who spend all their time telling Americans how wonderful they are at fighting wars. Is this supposed to be making some sort of point?


Pearl Harbor

Rafe is having some injections in his bottom, courtesy of pretty nurse Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale). For some reason he decides this would be an ideal moment to ask her out. He tries to tell her that he likes her, but it comes out as "Miss, I really, really lick you." Ha ha! A Freudian slip! Evelyn giggles as if it's sexy. Not a realistic reaction. In the 1940s, to "lick" someone meant to beat them up.


Pearl Harbor

Undeterred, Rafe turns up to meet Evelyn later. "I got some genuine French champagne," he boasts. "From France." This scene is set in December 1940. We can only hope Rafe bought the bottle at least seven months earlier, because northern France has been completely occupied by the Germans since June. Offering to punch a lady and then plying her with Nazi booze: if this character were really in the 1940s, he would need to work on his seduction technique.


Pearl Harbor

Cuba Gooding Jr appears for a cameo as Doris Miller, one of the real heroes of Pearl Harbor. Miller, a ship's cook, carried sailors to safety during the attack, then grabbed an anti-aircraft gun and took on the Japanese planes. In the film, he only interacts with the main characters in one scene, when Evelyn tends to his injuries. (She does this without a chaperone, even though she is white and he is African-American. Bearing in mind that the armed forces were actually increasing segregation in their hospitals at the time, this is hard to credit.) The real Miller was a stand-out figure at Pearl Harbor. It's a shame the film relegates him to a token role.


Pearl Harbor

Too many faults to list here, but military history enthusiasts will find plenty to get their regimental knee breeches in a twist about. If you notice things like wrong-model Warhawks, prepare for three hours of teeth-grinding rage. The Doolittle Raid opens another can of mistake worms, not least the implication that the Americans bombed Tokyo to resolve a love triangle between Rafe, Evelyn and Rafe's best buddy. But by this point you might be too busy laughing at Alec Baldwin shouting "Max power!" to care.


Pearl Harbor

In the 1940s, everyone smoked relentlessly. The 2001 film has a strict no smoking onscreen policy. Apparently, this is because smoking is bad for you. Which is true, but then again the movie shows people playing games of chicken in planes over populated areas, driving across open fields through machine gun fire in cars fully tanked up with petrol, and launching a full-scale military attack on American soil. All of which are even more bad for you than smoking. Ask your doctor.


Pearl Harbor

A motley collection of historical details, each of them a bit wrong. Many of the mistakes are minor, but if you add together the embellished battle sequences, the flimsy caricatures of real historical figures, the tin ear for period dialogue, and the weird fantasy version of 1940s America where no one smokes or is racist, you end up with a very peculiar war.

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