"I'm 45 years old, I'm an old ham." (Pearl Harbor (DVD))

Member Name: Yermansays

Product:	Pearl Harbor (DVD)
Date:	13/06/01 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Attack on Pearl.

Disadvantages: Everything else.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned, having read a number of reviews in Dooyoo and elsewhere but it’s a movie you have to see for yourself. At least I had to; you can make up your own mind.

The opening scene is touching. Two small boys are pretending to be fighter pilots in a battered old airplane (The rest of the movie is very similar although the boys are now men.). One of the young lads Danny (Josh Hartnett to be) is struck across the face by his old man and his slightly older friend Rafe (Ben Affleck to be) responds by whacking the dad with a big lump of wood. All throughout the movie, you can’t help feeling, the dad wasn’t the only one to be hit with a plank of wood. Alec Baldwin (plays Jimmy Doolittle) acts like he swallowed a plank.

I digress; the boys grow up and duly become ace pilots. Rafe meets and falls in love with a walking coat hanger, Nurse Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale). He volunteers to fight against the Germans and is stationed in England. His mate Danny stays behind in America. Rafe quickly gets into the swing of things and in no time at all is shooting down German planes. One of the British guys says to him “ If the rest of American men are of the same calibre as you, then God help the country that picks a war with America.” Not the exact words spoken but you get my drift.

I’ll continue. Rafe is shot down and word reaches home, he has died in combat. After a period of mourning Danny and Evelyn console each other and guess what? They fall hopelessly in love. Oh joy of joys!

I’ll move on quickly to the Japanese and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This is extremely well done and makes the movie almost worth watching. I say almost because you have to wait nearly two hours to get there. There is no doubt the attack is stunning but it’s too little too late.

Jon Voight plays President Roosevelt (or is it Rosehimself). One scene has him climbing out of his wheelchair
to prove the point, that anything is possible.
Alec Baldwin delivers a line to his young pilots “I’m 45 years old, I’m an old man.” He should have said, “I’m 45 years old, I’m an old ham.”

Summary: