Pearl Harbor
A historical movie should be like any other good movie; it should focus on people and not events. It should show how events shape people's lives. Indeed Pearl Harbor did that, but the people it focused on never, in the movie's 3 hours playing time, caught my sympathy.
The movie had one of the worst love stories I've ever seen. First it was Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsdale. Then, Affleck died, making way for Josh Hartnett to enter Beckinsdale's heart. As expected, Affleck came back from the dead only to find his girlfriend pregnant with his best friend's child.
The movie did have its highlight: the attack on Pearl Harbor. It featured some of the best effects I've seen so far.
But the movie didn't end with this crushing defeat. Being an American movie, it had an American ego. It was like watching Armageddon all over again or an Armageddon prequel. Michael Bay's used the same tricks on this one: the heart-wrenching president's speech, the suicide mission to save the world, the scenes from American everyday life and Ben Affleck.
The movie, in a word, was bad. It could have been done a lot better. I only wish the Japanese could make an anime movie about Hiroshima and Nagasaki to show their side. Or someone here could make a movie about the Death March or Corregidor.