The Movie: Never before have I seen a movie where the good parts were so incredibly good, and the bad parts were so horrendously bad. The war movie part of Pearl Harbor was amazing in its drama and realism. In fact, some parts were hard for me to watch, as I felt that for the first time I was getting a good idea of what it might have really been like down there during the attack.

But, you've probably already heard by now how bad the "love story" part of this movie was, and well, I now know first hand that everything I heard was true. This wonderful, gripping, beautiful war movie is intertwined with a shallow and contrived story of a love triangle that would seem more at home on a daytime soap opera than it does in this movie. It was super cheesy, and unfortunately, in some places, this cheesiness invaded into the space of that great war movie I was talking about.

But back to the war sequences -- the Pearl Harbor attack amazed me both with its depictions of the sheer magnitude of the attack, while still being able to focus on the details of the individual men that were down there. The special effects were quite impressive, and well, I was definitely drawn into the action.

And as great as those war sequences were, the hokey tedium of the love sequences will probably keep me from ever spending the three hours it would take to watch this movie again. It just wouldn't be worth it... and I shudder to think of just where the extra hour of the four-hour Vista Series Director's Cut version of this movie came from! But overall... I would say that it's worth seeing for the good parts, but don't say I didn't warn you about the bad parts.

The DVD: This is a two disc set, with the movie split into two parts. The film is spread across the two discs, which allowed them to get a very good bitrate on the anamorphic video transfer which is perfect... one of the best I've ever seen, with absolutely nothing to complain about. It's clean, yet still shows just enough of that film grain to remind you that yes, this was shot on film. The colors are bold and bright, and there are no compression artifacts to be found.

I've never seen such a strange array of audio options before -- you get your standard Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 tracks, and you get a DTS 5.1 track too, which is nice to have, but nothing really unusual. The really weird part though, was the inclusion of a fourth audio track, using Dolby Headphone processing. Dolby Headphone recreates 5 channel surround sound using a standard headset, and it really works -- it's a very odd feeling at first, as you are wearing headphones, but the sound really does appear to be coming from out in front and all around you.

But anyway... the DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks are stunning, with great detail and clarity, and the surround mix is wonderful, with a very rich, immersive sound field that puts you right in the middle of all the action.

The second disc also has all the extra features, and there are quite a few, with a couple of documentaries, a music video, and some other junk, none of which I actually watched, but since there is so much, I just gave it a "4".

This really is one of the best put-together DVD's I've ever gotten my hands on, with awesome video and audio (yay DTS!), and a ton of extras. There is, as I mentioned before, a 4-disc Vista Series version, with a 4 hour long director's cut. I'm pretty sure I will never, ever see that version, so yeah. If you're a big fan, go for it, but I think I'll abstain. It's just too bad that this movie was such a mix of great and horrible that it makes me not really want to invest the time to watch it again, because the great parts are really great, and the DVD production is awesome.