Watching Cameron’s film, you had the feeling that, even though he was principally concerned with his melodramatic love story, on a fundamental level he took seriously the events surrounding the sinking of the Titanic he had a level of interest in and respect for his source material.īy contrast, Pearl Harbor is essentially a historical cartoon, a bit of fluff that neither much knows nor cares about the context of the events of December 7, 1941. It gave its viewers real insight into what they were watching. A historical cartoonĪnother thing about Titanic was that, even though it wasn’t actually about the historical event it was bound up with, like Thirteen Days it did take the time to explain exactly what was going on in the background. Affleck’s out-acted by relative unknown Josh Hartnett ( Blow Dry), the best friend and romantic rival (even though Hartnett’s character is equally underwritten) he’ll be opening movies himself before long.

Pearl Harbor, however, is burdened by a sprawling cast of characters, led by Ben Affleck (another Armageddon alum), who’s as blandly generic as no-name corn flakes - and doesn’t even compensate by taking likable roles. Cameron’s film shrewdly focused on its three leads (Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane), all of whom are gifted with real charisma and screen presence. Yet whereas Titanic was the work of a master manipulator, a man with a special genius for making cheesy melodrama seem moving and gripping, Michael Bay has so far in his career shown no competence for anything but pyrotechnics. (Coincidentally, both films feature two men vying for a British actress named Kate who’s playing an American.)

In this movie, Pearl Harbor merely provides a tragic backdrop for a banal love-triangle story, just as the Titanic disaster was the backdrop for James Cameron’s story of Rose and Jack and the rich fiancé. Thirteen Days was about the Cuban missile crisis, in a sense that Pearl Harbor is not about Pearl Harbor. It’s depressing to think that this bloated, shallow, hollow spectacle will probably make more money this holiday weekend than a solid, gripping historical thriller like Thirteen Days made in its entire run.

Pearl harbor cast