James Proclaims!

Michael Bay’s 2001 movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbor is exactly the kind of movie we’ve come to expect from Michael Bay. Spectacular special effects, but rather light on anything resembling narrative, acting and credible dialogue. Throw in an abundance of clichés and an excessively long running time and you have formula that has served him well over the years. In the case of Pearl Harbor though, Bay managed to add historical inaccuracies to his already impressive arsenal.

It was deservedly critically panned and the cast, though undoubtably stellar, do very little to redeem the clunky dialogue. Nonetheless, I think if you go in expecting to see a Michael Bay movie, rather than a faithful adaptation of real life events, then it is hard to be too disappointed. It’s objectively quite a bad movie, but if you switch your brain to a suitably low setting, then it can still be entertaining.

Score for Christmasishness

The real life attack on Pearl Harbor happened on the 7th December, and in this point (if in not much else) the movie is quite faithful. It’s not overtly Christmassy, what with all the explosions and carnage, but there if you squint hard enough, you will see some signs that the season is upon us. So it’s a little bit Christmas(ish), and if watching Pearl Harbor as a Christmas movie is largely missing the point, then it’s no more missing the point than Michael Bay was when he made the movie in the first place.