“The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for individual stories of love, ambition, heroism and betrayal. The name of that movie is From Here to Eternity.” — A.O. Scott‘s lead paragraph in his 5.25.01 review of Michael Bay‘s Pearl Harbor. It is still one of the most withering put-downs of a mainstream big-budget Hollywood movie ever written.
