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Pearl Harbor
Buena Vista Pictures

Pearl Harbor reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 44 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.4 out of 10
based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 99 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sustained intense war sequences, images of wounded, brief sensuality and some language

Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, William Lee Scott, Alec Baldwin, Catherine Kellner, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Jon Voight

Against the backdrop of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, two friends (Affleck, Hartnett) find themselves drawn into the war and in love with the same woman (Beckinsale).


GENRE(S): War  
WRITTEN BY: Randall Wallace  
DIRECTED BY: Michael Bay  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: December 4, 2001 
Video: December 4, 2001 
Theatrical: May 25, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 178 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The film's immense cast and crew, headed by director Michael Bay, writer Randall Wallace and stars Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, blend artistry and technology to create a blockbuster entertainment that has passion, valor and tremendous action.
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The cast is engaging, the overall visual effects are tremendous and I found myself fairly swept away for most of the fast-moving, three-hour running time.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Jay Carr
The film never quite hits a sure-footed stride. The fictional love story stays fictional. But ''Pearl Harbor'' delivers the main event.
75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It expertly capitalizes on the emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of art.
Read Full Review
70
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Until a disappointing tailspin in the last hour, Pearl Harbor is the best piece of popular entertainment to come along in years.
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70
Newsweek David Ansen
Ninety minutes into this massive movie the attack commences, and the spectacular images come hurtling like fireballs. This is, let's be honest, what we're here for, and what most Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movies serve up best: the poetry of destruction.
Read Full Review
70
Film.com Sean Means
Parts of this three-hour World War II epic are brilliant -- especially the 40-minute sequence in which the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor is stunningly re-created.
Read Full Review
67
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The picture is nearly painstaking in its traditionalism, a tale of love, war, and valor in which nostalgia for ''simpler times'' gets mashed together, almost fetishistically, with nostalgia for old movies and for the spirit of knightly self sacrifice during World War II.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A movie meant to explode off the screen -- and it's at its best when those explosions are going full blast.
Read Full Review
60
The New York Times Dana Stevens
Works best as a bang-and- boom action picture, a loud symphony of bombardment and explosion juiced up with frantic editing and shiny computer-generated imagery.
Read Full Review
60
New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky
It's war porn, a movie that revels in the carnage.
Read Full Review
50
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
For all its agonizing true-life trappings, has the staying power of a grand-scale video game. Manhattan's sushi bars are in no danger of going dark.
Read Full Review
50
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's a Ritalin-deprived sensibility, but it keeps you skating over the dull spots, in which the film unfortunately is rich.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A crowd-pleasing blockbuster if ever there was one, features as its centerpiece a jaw-droppingly vivid re-creation of the Japanese attack on the U.S.'s fabled (and extremely vulnerable, as it turned out) Pacific fleet.
Read Full Review
50
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
"Pearl Harbor" is exactly the kind of prestige project you'd expect from a director like Bay, hitting all its targets with plodding precision and never once achieving surprise.
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The 2,400 Americans who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor deserve a nobler memorial than this sentimental hogwash that reduces heroism to "Top Gun" antics and pretty cinematography.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The filmmakers would have been better advised to stick with the Zeroes and spend less time making up heroes.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A script with the most underdeveloped characters and spectacularly realized visuals since "Titanic."
50
USA Today Mike Clark
It's an extravaganza worth seeing once -- and maybe later on DVD.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
With all the obvious work that went into this beautifully detailed, giant-scale movie, and considering the historical importance of the subject matter, was it too much to ask for a trace of intelligence, or maturity, or even insight?
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Unfortunately, the bulk of the three-hour epic is third-rate schmaltz that pays only lip service to history.
Read Full Review
40
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The film has no soul. An epic about this day of infamy should shake you to the core. But the real infamy about Pearl Harbor is that when you exit, you don't feel a thing.
Read Full Review
40
Slate David Edelstein
I found "Pearl Harbor" annoying but not excruciating—even at three hours, it's less assaultive than either "The Mummy Returns" or "Moulin Rouge."
Read Full Review
40
Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
What comes before and after the sound and fury of the bombing raid are reams of banal dialogue.
40
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
A Michael Bay movie: bang bang, paper-thin characters, wooden screenplay.
Read Full Review
40
Time Richard Schickel
The net result of this mighty effort is perhaps predictable: near total inconsequence.
40
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
If you decide to hit the concessions stand (where you're bound to have lots of company), I'd suggest going out for popcorn during either the first hour or the third, because the second features some pretty good big-screen effects involving planes, ships, and explosions.
Read Full Review
40
Village Voice J. Hoberman
The chaos is convincing, but, less ruthless than Steven Spielberg, Bay eschews D-day panic and mutilation.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality.
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30
Variety Todd McCarthy
Just compare their superficiality to the complex characters in "From Here to Eternity" and what's missing here becomes terribly clear.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Perhaps they should have called this "Bore-a, Bore-a, Bore-a."
Read Full Review
25
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
A brain-dead buddy-movie tearjerker with semi-tasteful romance and tasteful gore mixed in with the derring-do.
25
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Fiction and fantasy to evade reflection on the world we actually live in.
Read Full Review
10
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Littered with low points -- lame comedy, dubious history, fumbling drama and a love story so inept as to make a pacifist long for war.

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 99 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jared C. gave it a0:
I prefer war genre's, and this is a good choice, but comparing it to Behind Enemy Lines, U-571, and Saving Private Ryan, this is an embarresment, it was worked out the most terrible way possible, I hated absolutely everything in it.

Gerron K. gave it a9:
"Pearl Harbor" is an intricately made war movie. Forget the superficial romance and the especially bad dialogue in the first 30 minutes of the movie. It gives an intense perspective of what happened on that fateful day and what happened after. I enjoyed the movie a whole lot. It may have been 30 minutes shorter, but as it is it works.

Koen D. gave it a1:
Ridiculous movie. Worst movie I've seen in my entire life.

Dan R. gave it a2:
Armageddon, in its blend of ridiculous action sequences and tear-jerking, sopping sentimentality is perhaps bearable as escapist entertainment because of its science fiction premise. What is so offensive about this film is it's attempt to apply a similar kind of blind action movie for the guys/shallow romance for the chicks aesthetic to an actual, tragic event. Only Cuban Gooding's acting, the production values of the main attack sequence, and the depiction of the intelligence and communication failures that could have prevented the disaster deserve some credit. The rest is insulting.

Don H. gave it a5:
Attack on Pearl first-rate, gut-wrenching. All else maudlin at best. Oddly, all leads are unconvincing save at times Cuba Gooding Jr, as if there was no rehearsal, and nearly all 'minor' parts convincing. Nice bit by Jennifer Garner as a frenzied nurse, some inspired shots of children at play watching in bewilderment as Japanese bombers approaching the harbor fly low over them.

[Anonymous] gave it a6:
Lame love relationship, lame love triangle. Dumb speeches. The intense battle scenes thrills, and even raises a little patriotism. However, you're still looking at putting up with three hours of dumb scmaltz for fourty minutes of the best action you can get. Not a lot of reward for the work.

Kyle A. gave it a 2:
Avoid Ben Affleck like the plagued!

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