I saw this movie last night, and I enjoyed it.
First of all, as someone who grew up immersed in a culture that had fought the war and suffered from it, I am just happy that movie makers saw fit to make a pretty good movie about it, and one that definitely took the American side without being revisionist in any way.
My uncle died in a Japanese POW camp; my grandfather was medical officer on a troop transport ship and was nearly killed by a suicide attack when the ship was off Okinawa. I am very sensitive to portrayals of the Japanese during WWII, especially because the Japanese have managed to deflect the sort of criticism leveled at the Nazis by presenting themselves as victims during the war as a result of the atomic bombings.
I have no objection to the way the Japanese were portrayed at all. It seemed very straightforward: it showed their cruelty and war crimes, and it showed that the military had a strict and demanding code of honor (which did not apply to POWs and "inferior" races, of course).
The actors did well with what they were given to work with, which was not all that much. It is an action story rather than a deep character study. As others have said, Harrelson managed to look a lot like Nimitz, which was a plus. Patrick Wilson always does a good job. The Japanese actors did fine.
My only objection as far as acting was the guy who played Dick Best. I have never heard of him, but he did not do well in this role. Not believable at all. Since he was one of the main characters, that really hurt the film.
I am sorry that Ensign Gay got such short shrift. His survival was a big deal at the time; much was made of it; he was a famous fellow. Unless you knew the story beforehand, you really had no idea who he was.
The other complaint I had was that the screen seemed much too crowded with airplanes to be realistic. The CGI was fine, but planes getting shot down five or six at a time or coming in strafing five or six at once was over the top.
Still, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I wish my ten-year-old granddaughter would go see it with me, but it would be too hard for her to follow, I think. Last year in fourth grade her class read a book about a Japanese girl who died of leukemia which she acquired from surviving the Hiroshima bombing. My granddaughter knew all about Hiroshima, but had never heard of Pearl Harbor. Oh, goodness. I tried not to foam at the mouth too much as I explained some things to her, but maybe when she's older we can watch this together.
