Director Bay has also done The Rock and Armageddon so he knows his way around big-budget, action-packed event movies. The problem, besides his usual difficulties with characterization and sublety, is that we have to wade through the trite romantic triangle between U.S. Army Air aviator Hartnett, flyboy Affleck, and Navy nurse Beckinsale before we get to the well-done spectacle of the bombing on December 7, 1941, as well as the subsequent U.S. raid on Tokyo led by James Doolittle (Baldwin). It's probably quicker, and more enjoyable, to skip to the attack sequence between a rented double feature of From Here to Eternity and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.