A $135 million budget, 3 hour running time, with a love triangle featuring a young British actress, set during a well known historical event in which bloody huge ships sank. Stop me if you heard this one before. This was producer Jerry Bruckheimer�s Titanic. After the disappointment of his last annual summer blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, he went back to his Armageddon director Michael Bay and got Disney to stump up the cash for his most risky project to date. Then presumably he sat back and did some serious praying � did it work?
Well, can you say clich�? Apparently some cinemas are running a Cerebral Amnesty whereby you can leave your thinking apparatus in a green wheelie bin outside the screening while you sit back and enjoy Pearl Harbor. Yes, I said enjoy. It�s big, it�s dumb and it�s about pilots, but a sure fire hit nonetheless. The script drops clangers faster than Dave Beasant on a bad day and except for the bombing sequence all of this has been done before. But they haven�t half done it well this time.
The opening of the film, establishing Affleck and Hartnett�s friendship, could have been taken straight out of Top Gun (another Bruckheimer money spinner) with cocky flyboys and risky air stunts which enrage their superiors. We then move on to Affleck�s efforts to woo beautiful nurse Beckinsale � allowing him to flex his proven comedy skills - and everything is going swimmingly until he has to leave for Britain. After he is shot down and declared dead, feelings blossom between Beckinsale and Hartnett, but Affleck soon returns after hiding out in France. You can see where it goes from there, a strictly by the numbers romance plot which turns up few surprises but is still enjoyable enough, told with a straight face, full of slow-motion and littered with sunsets and symphonies.
Rather than having the bit everyone already knows at the end, like Titanic, Bay has the bombing itself as the middle act. The seamless mix of CGI and real antique planes and ships is awesome and thoroughly believable. Despite using the same frame jumping techniques as Saving Private Ryan the massacre is not quite as visceral, but for scale and ambition the recreation surpasses Spielberg�s Omaha beach landing. Japanese Zeroes strafe the decks, shallow water torpedoes hole ship�s hulls and the destruction of the USS Arizona is brilliantly realised. Bizarrely, it begins to drag towards the end of the attack as our heroes commandeer planes from a small airstrip and try and get some revenge on the attacking Japanese. The final third of the film then sets about resolving the love triangle while America seeks revenge for the raid and, similar to the opening, then resembles another film, Memphis Belle, with pretty boys in flying fortresses.
Yet despite all its hokey dialogue and hackneyed romance you can�t help but have fun with it. Suspensions of disbelief are not required as often as in a usual Bruckheimer film (although Affleck flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, being one of only two US planes in the sky at Pearl Harbor and piloting one of 16 B-25 bombers on the Doolittle mission is a stretch) and the effects are immaculate, save Jon Voigt�s President Roosevelt with blatant stick on fat neck . Buy your popcorn, leave your brain in the receptacle provided and grin like a fool, the first blockbuster of the summer is here. |
