Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) - Still the best Pearl Harbor Movie!

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) is an absolute gem of a movie!

I don't dare to call it a masterpiece just yet because of not exactly stellar actors' performances and the "old movie feel" that holds it a little bit back just short of that.

BUT, it is the best movie about Pearl Harbor attack yet, out of the 3 I have seen, and I have liked them all i must say.

My personal order:
1st Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
2nd Pearl Harbor (2001)
3rd Midway (2019) - which technically isn't about Pearl Harbour but since it does feature the attack, i count it.

So what makes it better than the rest? Well, have you watched the video?
Practical effects of course! A lot more than in Pearl Harbor (2001) and Midway (2019) was basically all CGI fest.

Cherry on top? It doesn't have any silly love story implemented in it. The movie understands that the focus should be on the "task", and not some romance in a war movie.

I can't get over of how well the combat scenes look for 1970s movie.
Today's "ambitious" movies have a lot more bigger budgets, but would never dare to attempt for practical effects of this scale. I mean, there are no real ships blown up in this movie unlike Pearl Harbor (2001); but at least the ships are the correct models and the explosions still look more like a real explosion instead of a mere burned out fuel fireball.

Also, nothing is rushed and the movie takes longer than the actual attack at 2.5 hours!
But if you take into account there is 1.5h long detailed prelude to the Japanese actions there as well, the actual attack takes about 1h less than the real one - that had 2 waves separated by 20min.

If you're interested into why it happened in the first place, and how, this would be the best movie to watch to get the best understanding of this event.