Pearl Harbour

Religiously, but ill-advisedly, sticking to the Titanic template – right down to a Celine soundalike’s power-ballad over the credits – Michael Bay’s three-hour military epic is a suitably bombastic treatment of one of World War Two’s most infamous incidents – the Japanese bombing of a US naval base.

The subject matter is so politically straightforward and pleasingly patriotic it has already proved fruitful ground for several Hollywood war-flicks, but Pearl Harbour, in spite of its enormous budget, is an eminently forgettable addition to the canon.

Plot: Rafe McCauley (Affleck) and Danny Walker (Hartnett) are childhood best buds (“My brother, my best friend, my right hand”, announces Affleck at one point) with a lifelong fetish for flying. By adulthood, they become daredevil pilots in the US Air Corps, where Rafe meets and falls for Evelyn (Beckinsale), a dedicated young nurse. Cue seemingly-endless exchanges of soft-focus kisses in clouds of rail steam and the like, until Rafe volunteers to do his bit in the Battle of Britain, where he goes missing in action.

Devastated, Evelyn turns to Danny for comfort, and eventually more. A couple of From Here To Eternity visual references later, and Rafe miraculously and unexpectedly returns, leaving all three characters in something of a bind, as Evelyn is now pregnant.

However, their respective emotional traumas, and all the Hawaiian Gidget-style beach-parties that suround them, are abruptly ended by the squadrons of Japanese warplanes which descend upon Pearl Harbour.

Regardless of the historical setting, Pearl Harbour is fundamentally played out as a straightforward disaster movie, with one massive set-piece (the bombing raid) at its core. It’s accomplished enough in terms of pure spectacle, but the darkly lit central sequence often leaves the viewer straining badly to decipher just what is going on, and is lengthy to the point of near-sadism.

As a historical document, Pearl Harbour bears few if any traces of authenticity (Beckinsale’s gaggle of medical mates, for example, spout anachronistic lines like “nice butt” at regular intervals, and frequently resemble a particularly rampant hen-party in Ibiza), and its attempts to stage an epic love-story are marred by miscasting.

Hartnett brings di Caprio-style boyish looks to the party, but displays hardly any of little Leo’s acting abilities or screen presence. Beckinsale strives to be impressively breathy, but she’s often constrained by a role which requires little more than frequent lipstick reapplications.

Pearl Harbour’s most monumental mistake, of course, is the casting of none-less-talented Ben Affleck. While his overwhelmingly cocky, smug screen persona can be acceptable in a comedic supporting role or buddy-picture, his emotional range is utterly ill-equipped to carry a romantic movie of any sort, yet the genre has called on his services time and again of late (Forces of Nature, Bounce, and now this).

For all its flaws, Pearl Harbour has a few features to recommend it. The film never becomes quite as ridiculously pompous as Titanic, using comic juxtaposition to deflate its more overcooked romantic moments, and it also captures a genuine sense of huge tragedy when recreating the sinking of the Ohama.

These are ultimately, though, minor saving graces in a film that demands three hours from your life, but they just about rescue Pearl Harbor from the realms of utter travesty.