So Memorial Day weekend is usually the spot when a studio releases their so called "big event" film. Such classics as Godzilla, Mission Impossible 2, and Star Wars Episode One have all made their debuts on the well known weekend. So why should this year be any different. Enter Pearl Harbor, a film that Touchstone pictures has been promoting the hell out of for over a year now.

Giving a plot profile hardly seems necessary. The film is about the infamous Pearl Harbor attack. It was directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. What more needs to be said. Oh yeah, this movie is a great big pile of crap.

First of all, I'd like to start by saying that most critics loathe Bay. Well I actually like the guy. I think his movies are fun. While movies like The Rock and Armageddon are loud and dumb, I appreciate them because that's all they aspire to be. Pearl Harbor on the other hand, sets out to make a statement. Bay wants us to believe that this is a historical document. He does so by trying to blend fact with fiction ala Titanic. This film actually unfolds like Independence Day. The first act we have the establishing of the characters, the second act we have the attack, and in the third act we fight back. The foundation of the story revolves around a contrived and completely silly love triangle involving stars Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale. Pearl Harbor clocks in at a whopping three hours and you'd think with a running time that long Bay and screenwriter Randall Wallace (Braveheart) would have ample time to develop characters. This is hardly the case.

Affleck is hardly an action star. He has proven to be talented (see Chasing Amy) but in this particular genre, I just don't buy him. It really bothers me that he's playing Jack Ryan in the next Tom Clancey flick. Hartnett does have a certain charisma but like Affleck, his character is so underwritten, I felt no emotional connection. Beckinsale is a beauty and reminds me of Nicole Kidman. Bay and Wallace try to make her character a woman of strength during the medical rescue sequences but then belittle her in the love story. What's more, the three leads really have no chemistry with one another. The film makers have really blown a golden opportunity with the supporting cast. Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore and William Fichtner all turn in terrific but thankless performances. Cuba Gooding Jr. manages to create a completely three dimensional character even though he's only on screen for about ten minutes. Dan Aykroyd even shows up as does Alec Baldwin who actually over plays his role as a patriotic military man.

It's obvious while watching Pearl Harbor that Bay is most interested in blowing the audience away with the actual attack sequence which doesn't take place until about halfway through the film. True, the thirty minute sequence is an adrenaline pumper, but perhaps that's because everything that precedes it is so damned boring. When you read between the lines, it's a rather typical action sequence blending the dogfight sequences in Star Wars and Top Gun and the drama of Midway and Titanic. Speaking of Top Gun, Bay must really love that movie. Not only are there moments reminiscent of that picture in Pearl Harbor, there's even a character named Goose.

I find it hard to believe that Bay was actually thinking of veterans while making Pearl Harbor. Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Oliver Stone's Platoon are films that really capture the horror of war and actually feel like odes to the men that fought in awful battles. Pearl Harbor by comparison feels hollow. While Bay does go for an old fashioned feel (think Casablanca), many moments in this picture are downright silly. I even found myself laughing at scenes that were supposed to be serious.

I must give a shout out to the real star of Pearl Harbor. That would be the marketing department over a Touchstone Pictures. Even though this really isn't a good movie, it's going to make a mother lode at the box office. I expect that many people have fallen in love with this movie before they've even seen it. Well not this movie fan. I'm smart enough to know that Pear Harbor is easily Bay's worst film. It's too long, I didn't care about the main characters, and I felt very unfulfilled by the time this excessive epic came to a close. Do yourself a big favor, skip Pearl Harbor and see Shrek instead. It's half as long and one hundred times more entertaining.