Midway 2019

[donna43]

Just saw Midway. Review, some spoilers.

It's historically accurate and the main characters are all real people. The CGI is stunning. To see the Enterprise and those ships come alive was really something. The story picks up before Pearl Harbor at Japan in 1937 and continues through the end of the battle. It covers the Japanese attack in Hawaii, early Enterprise action in the Marshall Islands, mostly skips over Coral Sea (the Enterprise is pretty much a main character and it was not at Coral Sea), includes the Doolittle raid, and the buildup and action at Midway. Most of the movie was far superior to the 1976 version but the battle itself was actually better explained in the original. There just wasn't enough time I suppose to fully cover certain events that have almost become legend, such as the sacrificial attacks by the Buffalo fighters based on Midway Island and the torpedo planes. Overall, recommended.

[Shuffler]

Sounds like it may have covered too much other than Midway. The story of Midway has plenty of details for a movie.

[puller]

Sounds like it may have covered too much other than Midway. The story of Midway has plenty of details for a movie.

Indeed

[oakranger]

Just saw Midway. Review, some spoilers.

It's historically accurate and the main characters are all real people. The CGI is stunning. To see the Enterprise and those ships come alive was really something. The story picks up before Pearl Harbor at Japan in 1937 and continues through the end of the battle. It covers the Japanese attack in Hawaii, early Enterprise action in the Marshall Islands, mostly skips over Coral Sea (the Enterprise is pretty much a main character and it was not at Coral Sea), includes the Doolittle raid, and the buildup and action at Midway. Most of the movie was far superior to the 1976 version but the battle itself was actually better explained in the original. There just wasn't enough time I suppose to fully cover certain events that have almost become legend, such as the sacrificial attacks by the Buffalo fighters based on Midway Island and the torpedo planes. Overall, recommended.

You overlooked that the Doolitle raid they had the wrong variant B-25.  If i am not mistaken the dive bombers had 500lbs bomb where i beleiev they are to be 250 lbs. 

[Vudak]

You overlooked that the Doolitle raid they had the wrong variant B-25.  If i am not mistaken the dive bombers had 500lbs bomb where i beleiev they are to be 250 lbs.

Yeah but in the original film, Corsairs were doing most of the fighting.

[Vraciu]

Yeah but in the original film, Corsairs were doing most of the fighting.

Actually it was mostly Vindicators.   They played SBDs and TBDs but never themselves.  Lol

I still love the original.   It’s a classic. 

[Vudak]

I saw this last night. It wasn't bad. I doubt I'll watch it as many times as the original.

The CGI was much better than most air battle films out in recent years.  The acting was so so. I don't know who plays the lead, but I know I don't like him.

It's tough to beat Heston and Fonda.

[pembquist]

I would like to see a movie about the battle off Samar during the Battle Leyte Gulf.

From watching the trailer for the new Midway I didn't get the impression it was going to feel very real. Some of the CG looked like motion capture from a skateboard park.

[The Fugitive]

I thought they did a pretty good job. CGI makes the action scenes far more intense than the original. I didnt like the lead either (Ed Skrein, played "Francis" in the Deadpool movie). Had he played it more like "Francis" I think it would have played better.

They did spend a good amount of time on the Midway battle. The other battles, Pearl Harbor, Marshall Islands and the Dolittle raid were all short segments. The Midway battle included the intel operations , some points of view from the Japanese side with the struggles they had as well as the fight itself.

Over all a good movie and well worth the money. Ill be buying the DVD. 

[Saxman]

*NINJA SMOKE*

Haven't been around much, since I've had no time to fly (at least up to my personal standards). But I really wanted to see what y'all had to say about the movie. I'm surprised to see so few responses.

Anywho, here's the review I posted on Facebook:

Roland Emmerich's Midway isn't the first attempt to capture the events of June 4, 1942 on the big screen. 1976's Midway, featuring Charleton Heston is widely — and rightfully — considered one of the classic war films. Emmerich's 2019 film, a long-time labor of love he's spent at least a couple decades trying to get made, is inevitably going to be compared to it, however it's not a remake, but a fresh take on one of the most pivotal moments in US Navy history.

This iteration of Midway tells the story of the first six months of the Pacific War, primarily through the eyes of the dive and torpedo bomber pilots assigned to USS Enterprise, joined by the signals intelligence group under Lt. Commander Edwin Layton, and James Doolittle's harrowing raid on Tokyo.

The film opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor that drags the US into the war, follows Enterprise through the Marshall Islands and Doolittle's raid, and ultimately culminates with Midway itself, the point at which the tide of the war began to irrevocably turn in America's favor (you'll get some argument from scholars over whether Midway or Guadalcanal was the more decisive, but there's no denying that, much like Gettysburg 80 years earlier, Midway has an enormous impact on American and Japanese morale and strategy).

The history here is spot-on. The production crew did a great deal of research on the moving pieces leading up to the battle and it shows, right down to the "B-1" painted on the side of Richard Halsey Best's Dauntless dive bomber. There's no dressed up modern guided missile cruisers or nuclear carriers, here; everything from the American battleships at Pearl Harbor to the mighty Yamato have been fully realized. It's even possible to spot the unusual placement of the "island" on the Japanese carriers Hiryu and Akagi (the only two carriers in history to place the tower on the carrier's port side).

This does lead to one point of contention in the extensive use of CGI. It seems that audiences have been increasingly turning against computer-rendered effects, and calling into question whether these effects stand up to scrutiny as well as traditional practical effects and model work.

In that regard, Midway is certainly a very modern film. The camera swoops and wheels around the action, flying with and around the aircraft twisting through skies filled with flame, wreckage, and shell bursts. However in truth there's really no other way this battle could be properly depicted.

Over 600 land and carrier-based aircraft fought in the battle. It would be impossible to gather even a FRACTION of that number from those aircraft remaining in collections across the world. This is further complicated by the fact that not a single Japanese B5N or American TBD Devastator torpedo bomber (both extensively featured) survived the war intact, while only a handful of SBD Dauntless dive bombers — only four of which are airworthy — remain (and would certainly not be risked to film a dive bombing attack).

Some of the flight physics would certainly come across as more Battlefield than DCS. I'm sure there's aviation buffs who might roll their eyes at some of the stunts, and it's a shame that the film completely omits the Navy fighters altogether (there's not one F4F Wildcat to be seen in the entire movie). However one thing the film does well is depict the just how harrowing attacking an aircraft carrier and its attending escorts really was. The battle scenes are gripping and action-packed, with plenty of stuff going kaboom, and there's certainly plenty of them. As this is very much an Emmerich film, so if you've seen the likes of Independence Day you should know what to expect here.

Critics have universally called the film a throwback to the old-school war movies of yesteryear, and they're not wrong. Emmerich's Midway owes more to epics such as The Longest Day than to The Hurt Locker. But that comes with sacrifices.

The story mainly serves to move the plot along from action scene to action scene. This is where perhaps the single biggest flaw in the film can be found: There's a lot going on, but not enough movie to actually develop it. Each of the major set pieces could have been a film all its own (and some of them, like Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid, already have) and I found myself wondering if it might not have been best for this to have been done as a miniseries, where these threads could be more fully developed. ESPECIALLY given the attention to historical detail present throughout the film. Instead we largely jump from moment to moment.

Acting performances are serviceable, however as with the story, mainly exist to get us from battle scene to battle scene. The compressed timeline means we rarely get to know more about the characters than some basic traits to set them apart.

The cast is HUGE and filled with talent. Ed Skrein plays Lt. Richard Halsey Best, XO of and later commanding officer of Bombing Squadron Six, with Woody Harrelson as Nimitz, Dennis Quaid as Bill Halsey, Aaron Eckhart (Doolittle), Luke Evans (Wade McCluskey), Keean Johnson, (James Murray) Patrick Wilson, (Edwin Layton) Nick Jonas, (Bruno Gaido) and Mandy Moore (Anne Best) rounding out much of the American cast.

One of the most impressive things about Midway is that almost the entire cast of named characters is a historical figure. This isn't like most historical epics where you have one or two token historical figures, with the rest being original characters. These WERE the men who fought and died in the battle, or faced the agonizing wait for news of their loved ones.

Skrein's Dick Best serves as the central point of view for the film, and undergoes the most development over the course of the film. He's a reckless and gung-ho family man who eventually finds himself burdened with command upon taking over as CO of Bombing Six on the eve of Midway.

The other major thread follows Patrick Wilson as Lt. Commander Edwin Layton, the intelligence man whose cryptographers (such as the eccentric bathrobe and slippers-wearing Joe Rochefort) are the key in laying the American trap at Midway, and who is haunted by his failure to convince his superiors about the pending danger leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now he finds himself working directly under Nimitz (the least Woody Harrelson I've ever seen Woody Harrelson) who has charged him with the unenviable task of determining just where the Japanese will strike next, while both face resistance from a War Department not ready to listen to their own Intelligence.

The film also does attempt to paint a more balanced picture of the two sides in the conflict than many of the classic films. Yamamoto is presented as a conflicted man who didn't want war, but is honor- and duty-bound to fight with everything he has. Often times as much against his own comrades (particularly firebrands like Tojo and the Army, who drove and controlled much of Japan's foreign policy). However there's also no escaping the historical atrocities committed by the Japanese, both in the aftermath of the Doolittle Raid (in which over 10,000 Chinese were systematically murdered in retaliation for aiding the downed American fliers) and during the Battle of Midway itself (including one of the film's biggest tearjerkers and gut punches).

Its unfortunate the film didn't have much time to devote to better developing these characters. As a result, it can be somewhat harder to care about their fates, and the inevitable deaths (which, seeing as most of the characters are historical figures, knowing anything about the battle means knowing about them well in advance) don't have the impact they might have. With the focus almost exclusively on Enterprise's air group, Hornet and Yorktown get very little development, and Torpedo Squadron 8 isn't even introduced before flying into their fateful assault on the Japanese fleet. Again, this is a flaw in the format, and the scope of the story is one that could have GREATLY benefited from the extended run time of a miniseries.

However as noted above, where the film most shines is the aforementioned attention to detail. While the 1976 film largely omitted the contribution of USS Nautilus, this version does not. And while the original film perpetuated the mistaken belief that the Japanese carriers were struck with planes spotted for launch, and bombs and fuel hoses strewn across the flight deck, in this iteration we see the rearming properly occurring BELOW decks (though no less vulnerable with munitions out of their armored bunkers).

In spite of its flaws, Midway is a thoroughly enjoyable film. What it lacks in story and character development it makes up for with its effects, action, and attention to historical detail. For better or worse it very much lives up to the critics remarks that this is a throwback to a bygone era of war films, and well worth watching.

[Saxman]

Every time I read more about the movie, it astonishes me just HOW MUCH attention they paid to details. Even Best's attack on Akagi is presented correctly (right down to him and his wingmen entering their dives from a Vic formation rather than in sequence). Incidentally, the set mockup they made of the TBD-1 was SO balls-on accurate (other than being made of wood and foam) that it was accepted at the USS Midway museum — AFAIK, it's the ONLY reproduction artifact in the museum collection.

Pretty ironic for a film that was being derisively called "Pearl Harbor 2" when the trailers began to drop.

[oakranger]

I hope they did not have Yamamoto say “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.....”

[Nefarious]

The movie focuses less on the battle overall and more on Enterprise and Bombing 6. When you look at it like that, it's not as crammed.

[DmonSlyr]

I thought it was the best movie of 2019.

No social justice BS. Not overly dramatic with love drama/scenes. Lots of edge of your seat action. Lots of unexpected events. Wasn't overly bloody and gory. Represented both sides with dignity. It was a real story. It was great for the big screen.

I completely agree that they didn't really do a good job of depicting the overall battle. That, and they didn't show any American fighters. I really enjoyed the B26s and B25s though!

I give it a 9/10. It was a real movie about a courageous squadron, that skipped all the Bull$€hi+ and got straight to war!

[Vraciu]

Every time I read more about the movie, it astonishes me just HOW MUCH attention they paid to details. Even Best's attack on Akagi is presented correctly (right down to him and his wingmen entering their dives from a Vic formation rather than in sequence). Incidentally, the set mockup they made of the TBD-1 was SO balls-on accurate (other than being made of wood and foam) that it was accepted at the USS Midway museum — AFAIK, it's the ONLY reproduction artifact in the museum collection.

Pretty ironic for a film that was being derisively called "Pearl Harbor 2" when the trailers began to drop.

Yeah, that Devastator bomb load was great attention to detail, huh?   :