I watched Pearl Harbor today, as it happened to be on. I was really liking it up until the part where the ratio of Japanese to American deaths was pretty much backwards the way it should be.
It starts off with the main characters, Rafe and Danny, on a farm where they get in a cropdusting plane while pretending to be fighting Germans. They accidentally start it and go off flying, which is why they love flying so much later in their lives. Danny's dad comes to take Danny and hits him, and Rafe attacks him calling him a dirty German, so Danny's dad just explained he fought in World War One and didn't want them to see war.
Later though, Rafe and Danny are lieutenants in the air force. Evelyn, who will be the girl in the upcoming love triangle, is a nurse who passes Rafe's physical inspection thing in spite of his aixelsyd (dyslexia). Pretty soon Rafe falls for her and they do some crazy stuff, leaving a party in the middle of the night to go board a battleship. They drive a boat over to her and go up a lift thing on the side, and then they have their first kiss all romantic-like and the thing falls, they scream a ton and run away. They go hide in a hangar full of spread out parachutes, and they meet in one and kiss again, fall to the floor, and make sweet love. After all that, Rafe has to tell her that he signed up to fly with a British squadron against the Germans trying to bomb Great Britain. Naturally she is mad, but he already signed up to go and he goes and fights with the Brits. He shoots a few planes down, including a bomber, but then he gets a Messerschmidt on his tail that he can't shake and so he gets shot down and he dies. Rafe said if anything would happen to him, Danny would tell Evelyn, so the next scene is Danny getting out of an Army car at Evelyn's house so that he can tell her about Rafe. Evelyn and Danny are just torn by the news of his death. They help each other get through it, and Danny starts to fall for Evelyn. She leaves her hanky at a restaurant and he brings it to her house and he comes out in lame undies to get it. Pretty soon, they have sex too, and have a standing relationship.
The love triangle finished forming itself when Rafe unexpectedly returns the night before the Japanese attack. He finds Evelyn, kisses her, pronounces his love once more, and then realizes something is wrong and asks "We ARE still together, right??" Then sees Danny in the background and puts two and two together to get Danny plus Evelyn. He gets really mad, as anyone would, and yells stuff like "I LIVED because I loved you!!" and goes off to a bar and starts drinking shots with some friends, toasting his return. Danny follows and they have a huge brawl which gets the MPs to come break it up, and Rafe follows Danny to his car. They drive off and escape arrest. They sleep in the car after some fighting, saying they'll never really be friends the way they were again, and then they wake up in the morning to the sound of airplanes. Rafe says, "Does the Navy HAVE to start practice this early on a Sunday?" And then they try to go back to sleep. The first torpedo hits a battleship from a Japanese torpedo bombing, and Rafe and Danny are INSTANTLY fully awake and getting ready to get to a hangar. They drive for ten minutes to a hangar that hasn't been hit yet. The guy with a huge stutter is taking a pee in the morning and sees all the planes, goes to the dorm where a bunch of pilots are and starts stuttering and absolute ton and somebody says "Shut up" and then he goes "The Japs are here!" BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM as a Zero is shooting through the window behind him. They all scramble to get to their planes but they get bombed pretty hard. There's a lot of chaotic action that is really hard to describe, basically good American men that were drowning and being killed. The planes strafed waters filled with American sailors swimming for their lives, Japanese torpedo bombers dropping their payloads into the water, showing the torps rush towards their American targets. I hated that part, the American kill/death ratio was ridiculously embarrassing. 29 out of 350 Japanese planes destroyed while thousands of Americans were slaughtered? That made me angry. Very angry.
Anyway, eventually 3 planes are made to get into the air. The first one is shredded by 3 Japanese zeroes, while the next two, Danny and Rafe, are launched, and Danny is chased by a couple Zeroes. He complains about it a lot while Rafe goes off fighting and trying to help Danny, but Danny radios a guy on the ground who gets a few other guys with Browning Automatic Rifles and such to get up in a tower. Danny flies by the tower, the last Zero is following him, and the guys shoot down the Zero. Then Danny and Rafe hook up again and start destroying some of the planes. The attack is finished soon, and the pair land while the Jap planes depart for their carriers. After the battle, the United States declares war and everyone at Pearl Harbor goes to a memorial service thing.
Soon their CO gives them orders to see another officer, and then they are told about the top secret mission that they were being asked to do. They wouldn't even know where they were going, but they would definitely be flying. After they both accept the mission with no hesitation, Evelyn talks to Rafe and says, I'm paraphrasing of course, "I love you waaaay more than Danny, but I'm having Danny's baby, so, this sucks. Don't tell Danny, I don't want him to worry". They go do the mission, which is flying some bombers to do . . . what else . . . some bombing runs on Japan and Japan-occupied territory in China. They bomb some stuff successfully, but then they run of out fuel over enemy territory and crash in a rice field. Japanese soldiers run towards the crash, and Rafe is gonna get shot but Danny blocks it and gets shot instead. Rafe holds Danny in his arms as he dies and tells him he is going to be a father . . . but Danny simply responded "No, you are."
The movie ends with Rafe, Evelyn, and their new son Danny visiting Danny Sr's grave. The last scene is Rafe and his new son flying into the sunset.
Below is a picture of Danny on the left, and Rafe on the right.
I really liked this movie. The love story made it interesting in other ways than just the freaking sweet 45 minute action scene of the actual attack on Pearl Harbor. I was really mad about seeing all of these great American men and ships and women and children being killed by cowardly Japanese pilots, but I got over it.
I really like Rafe's name, because it rhymes with strafe, and he's a pilot.
Here is a picture of the lovely lady the two fought over.
She's perfect. haha
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