He was my friend. Don't be jealous. Not just anyone can have an ironic name like Max. 
#Burn

"Any other is a pretender. . ."
My point is exactly what yours is. The new Midway is not trying to outdo or emulate the first, it is simply a movie about the Battle of Midway. Just as you, Vraciu, are not trying to emulate or outdo the first Vraciu. If you are trying to emulate Vraciu and the movie is an attempt to emulate Midway 1976, then my point is invalid, but then the movie is doing is exactly what you are.
The more grand point to my statement is that using the old 1976 movie as a baseline to judge this film is erroneous. Because the movies are not connected (only by subject), we cannot judge them, based on each other. Instead, judge the movie for what it is, then compare it to previous films about WW2, not just Midway. How does this film compare to Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk, Redtails (recent WW2 aviation films). How does it compare to older WW2 films like Midway, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Battle of Britain. How about aviation films between these such as Tuskegee Airmen and Memphis Belle? Essentially, you should critique the movie based on what you see, not on what you have seen. It is fine to compare, but to say "this movie is not as good as 1976 Midway therefore it sucks," is biased, subjective, and displays an extreme lack of academic discipline.
It is akin to judging a sports team's performance against that of another based on similar opponents (e.g. Georgia lost to South Carolina and South Carolina lost to App State, therefore App State is better than Georgia). There are WAY too many variables to consider and it is not just black and white. Or judging one general's genius based on another's. Whoever you claim is the greatest general of all time, it can be argued against using anachronism; this is unfair, which wraps up my point.
For what it is worth, I have not seen the film. I thought it looked very cheesy in the previews and more like a Pearl Harbor 2.0 than an academic film about the Battle of Midway. Unfairly, I am a harsh critic of films about history because I expect them to get it right. My thing is, we know what happened so how in the world can you f*** it up? It is just baffling. The answer, of course, is people need to be entertained or no money is made. There is not much entertainment to the general population in a movie about Alexander which features a lot of drinking, killing, and mindblowing battlefield tactics and intuition. Instead, we need hints of homosexuality (but not full on homosexuality?), a LOT of time spent dealing with Alexander's misgivings with his powerful generals, and a ridiculous backstory about Olympias of Epirus. These are the types of movies that have contributed to making me so cynical in dealing with the historical film genre.