Pearl Harbor
dir. Michael Bay
Touchstone Pictures

Watching a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer is sort of like watching a train wreck. It's hard to look away, but really, you just don't want to be there in front of it. Armageddon, The Rock and Con Air are all films that feature slumming A-list actors, terrible dialogue and explosions — things that you'd think no one wants to watch that badly. These films hover right above mediocrity until they collapse under the weight of maudlin exploitation and a dopey, out-of-place love story. Pearl Harbor, his latest collaboration with director Michael Bay, takes this trajectory to a new, unfortunate extreme and cheapens its very real, very emotionally wracking inspiration.

Bay also directed The Rock and Armageddon, and brings the same exploitation-and-explosions aesthetic found in his earlier films to this one. Bay has made all of his films with Bruckheimer, and it's hard to distinguish who should be blamed for what — if Bay ever makes a movie without Bruckheimer, it will certainly be very influenced by the latter's style and bombast. The only real difference between Bruckheimer's productions with Bay and those without him is that Bay has a great eye for photography, making even the most cringe-worthy movie look beautiful.

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It's clear that the film's much-discussed $150 million budget went to making it look absolutely gorgeous. Pearl Harbor's video-game quality dialogue, simpering love story and ratings-board friendly violence are captured lovingly in beautiful red-orange tones, its sumptuous cinematography so good at some points you almost forget how awful the rest of the movie happens to be.

Clocking in at an excruciating three hours, Pearl Harbor stars Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as two best friends who both fall for a nurse played by Kate Beckinsale. All three happen to be stationed at Pearl Harbor on the day that will live in infamy. There's no other connection between this love triangle and these tragic events whatsoever. One could draw a comparison to Titanic's similar mix of fictional romance and historic tragedy, but in that case, the social issues within its main characters' relationship reflected what was happening in the event. Here, the love triangle could have occurred at any place or any time — there's nothing that joins this story to the one that the movie is about.

After the love triangle is dragged out for 90 minutes, the attack on Pearl Harbor begins and with it, the crass selling of a war movie. The lovingly photographed attack scenes do their job at first — it's hard not to be moved by the shock registered on the sleeping soldiers' faces or the destruction heaped upon the Pacific Fleet. But after a few moments, it's clear that Pearl Harbor's attack scenes are just Saving Private Ryan Lite. There isn't any blood and there aren't any cowards or heroes (except our fictional protagonists). There are dead people, but they're presented, at best, as faceless corpses or, at worst, as mouthpieces for insipid last words.

The attack on Pearl Harbor attempts to pack an emotional punch and fails. It's very similar to the moment in Armageddon when someone demands to know why Billy Bob Thornton won't be going up in space to get the meteor himself and the camera pulls back to reveal his bad legs. Blatant and cheap in the same way, Pearl Harbor's bombing scenes overshadow the real emotions and horror that accompany this event.

Pearl Harbor only hints at the horrors of war, rather than confronting them head-on. For that reason, it's hard to accept the film's message that this battle led to the nation's understanding of glory and heroism. Like many twentysomethings, I have grandfathers who are World War II veterans; this film does them a disservice. While watching some of the better war movies of the past few years, I've found myself wondering what it would be like to have the fate of my country in my hands, at my age. I found myself with greater admiration for what that generation sacrificed.

This film goes for the same reaction and produces its opposite. It tries to be a modern From Here to Eternity with some Saving Private Ryan and Titanic thrown in for good measure. It fails because it lacks the scope, grace and good storytelling that these three films brought to the historical epic.