Pearl Harbour

07/04/2015 18:46

At one point in my life, I couldn’t cry at films. Or anything, for the matter. Saying that now will come as a shock to people who have lingered around my viewing habits. I cry at everything these days. From that annual John Lewis Christmas thing that tickles my eye pouches to the finale of many films that are basically emotion porn as you leak over cancerous teenaged lovers and the like. It’s hard to imagine that, at one point, I could watch Terms of Endearment or weeping dramas in such a stoic fashion that people would start oiling up my joints.

Then one film came along that literally opened the floodgates that I’ve been unable to dam up since.

And that film was Pearl Harbour…..

I’ll hand in my badge now.

Because Pearl Harbour is so easily recognised as the biggest pile of American propaganda based shite that it even has its own hate related song in the phenomenal Team America satirical film. For those who don’t know, this overblown Hollywood production revolving around the infamous Historical event during World War 2 takes the audience away from the German aggression and straight into the sub-battle between American and Japan. As pilots Danny and Rafe, as totally BFFs, try to stop the war from separating their friendship, the Japanese launch an attack on the titular place.

Why Is It Bad?

This is pure, cheesy overblown nonsense. This is what happens when you twist historical facts to appease your patriotism and propaganda. This shiny turd of a movie contorted every moment of the attack to make the Japanese look like the awful bad guys. Now, you can happily read about this in more detail here and here, but there are many films that have some sort of political stance on wars. In fact, that is pretty much the deal with movies from either side apart from a few that really hammer home how shitty the war is for everyone involved.

Let me take this moment to stress that point. There are no winners when people go into war (extraneous enemies, you know, like Hitler, excluded). There is only propaganda that will strip away the humanity within the person. It’s this type of dehumanisation allows wars for oil to go on and perpetuates racism through cultures. So when a film trots out the “America YEAH! Japan BOO!” mentality without even stressing that America kinda dropped a fucking bomb on the country that still effects people to this day. It’s the kind of waste of space film that trollops along with this brainless mindset that doesn’t critically analyse the war but sends people into a frenzy.

Why Is It Good?

Cuba Gooding Jr for a start. That boy could, at one point in time, make every single movie a million times better. And I suppose I have that literally misty eyed look at the film that thawed my soul, letting all the emotions out in a tidal wave of empathy and love. It’s something that my family bring up constantly, certainly the initial deaths of certain nurses and seeing the victims sprawled out coaxed out floods of feelings. But that is where my allegiance to the film lies. It’s kind of like having a first crush when you are young and when you look back you realise he looks exactly like Jeremy Kyle and you don’t know what your hormones were thinking.

Made worse by the fact that this was slap in the centre of Ben Affleck’s crappy movie period so his acting is strained alongside the Josh Harnett’s eyebrows and Kate Beckinsale’s god-awful American accent and Pearl Harbour is one of those films that makes your toes curl. Perhaps from how absolutely terrible it is or because at one point in my life I thought it was the best fucking thing any filmmaker had ever shat out. Because it opened up some crevice in my soul that was previous untouched like an emotional virgin. I cannot deny that.

It’s also one of the worst films of all time.

I cannot deny that either.