Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale: Rated M: US$145 million. Three hours. Half the Hollywood B list. Pearl Harbor boasts all the stats of an epic movie. But is that what we got? All shorts and advertising aimed at convincing me and many, many others to race down to the nearest multiplex featured bombs, bullets and airplanes. A war movie? That’s what I expected.

What we get, in fact, is 183 minutes of celluloid we can break down into three distinct segments.

In the first block we wade through more than an hour of typical Hollywood schmaltz establishing a basic love triangle. Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are two life-long friends who fall for the same woman – Kate Beckinsale. As a love story, this first hour isn’t too bad, but that’s not what I came to see.

We do get a smattering of action before the big event and when that comes – boy does it ever. The attack on Pearl Harbor is delivered with all the whiz and bang you’d expect from an $145 million budget and the magicians at Industrial Light and Magic. It’s super entertaining and more than a little awe inspiring for the most part but then Hollywood can’t help itself and throws in extra shovels full of crap to spice things up.

Block three is whole new battle in the big bad war between the newly antagonistic trans-Pacific neighbours – the apparently famous Dolittle raid on Tokyo.

I say apparently famous because I ditched history in grade ten and never paid much attention before that. So I have no knowledge of any of the events portrayed in this movie save for the fact that Pearl Harbor was attacked and some ships were sunk.

On that basis I cannot delve into the argument surrounding historical accuracy.

I will say on that subject, however, that if this, or any other historically based movie, is not accurate in fact (schmaltz aside) then it’s simply a shame. Celluloid like this has such a potential to educate that to waste it is as morally wrong as spending $145 million on the damn thing in the first place. After all, the truth is stranger than fiction, so why change it.

If, on the other hand, you are one of the trainspotters who whinges that "that model of spitfire wasn’t produced until two years later," I’m not on your side either.

Three and half out of five.

Check out the official Pearl Harbor website.