Midway

If you enjoy reading my Spoiler-Free reviews, please follow my blog :)

With all due respect to Roland Emmerich and to his fantastic Independence Day, his movies never quite reach their potential, ending up in constant disappointments. It doesn't matter if he has excellent casts or amazing VFX teams, his films' screenplays are almost always stuffed with narrative issues. Midway is simply another installment in his saga of letdowns. Without knowing the director, anyone who looks at this movie will feel instantly captivated. From the unbelievably talented cast to the impressive visuals, it has two attention-grabber ingredients, which can result in a remarkable film only if the two pillars of any cinematic production are decent enough: story...

Just the facts, Jack

Intelligence officer Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) warns that a Japanese attack is imminent, but his advice is disregarded and the Japanese use their carrier fleet to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) swiftly assumes command of the heavily weakened US Pacific Fleet. After the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo & Honshu 4.5 months later, events lead up to the Battle of Midway on June 47, 1942. Ed Skrein plays cocky pilot Dick Best while Dennis Quaid is on hand as carrier commander William "Bull" Halsey.

"Midway" (2019) tackles the Battle of Midway and events leading up to it without throwing in a dramatic fictional story, like the love triangle of Pearl Harbor (2001)...

War stories are only worth retelling in film if you're doing something new and interesting with the genre. Otherwise, it's just a retread of 'Pearl Harbour' or 'Fury' or any of the dozen other thematically-empty, explosion-happy extravaganzas from the last ten years. There's a compelling, nuanced, and affecting film to be made about Midway. This is not that film.

• Jake Watt

Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-midway-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing

Admittedly I have a love for anything involving World War II and although the dialogue was a bit spotty and some of the visual effects were okay at best, I still found this to be a pretty good war movie and nice performances all around. Probably doesn't rank all that high compared to others about Midway and Pearl Harbor, yet still found it to be worth checking out. 3.75/5

Click here for a video version of this review: youtu.be/2Mr6XRF4GR4

Midway is an ambitous film that sets out to follow the United States entry into World War Two, from the attack on Pearl Harbour through to the Battle of Midway. To tell this story it focuses on two main characters who are also based on real life people. There's Ed Skrein playing Dick Best, a pilot on the USS Enterprise, and Patrick Wilson playing intelligence officer Edwin Layton.

As you might imagine jamming seven months of war into just over two hours is a big task, and while they did manage to pull this off, the result is a movie that feels rushed, where we can't get to know all the many characters, and which probably requires a pretty strong knowledge of this ti...

This movie was a bit of a positive surprise. I was actually prepared to not like it that much but Hollywood actually made a decent war movie without pushing their usual left wing political propaganda and woke SJW bullshit.

Its really a good movie in pretty much all aspects.

First, I liked that it covers quite a bit more than just Midway. It actually starts before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Then it covers the attack on Perl Harbor and also the famous Dolittle raid on Tokay to finally end up with the battle of Midway. All of it is more or less historically accurate. We also get to see a fair amount of the history from the viewpoint of the Japanese. Whether that bit of the story is actually entirely accurate I guess no one will ever kno...

I am not a fan of war movies (and therefore not an authoritative reviewer) so I can only say that I thought it was fairly entertaining. Woody Harrelson and Dennis Quaid were as good as I would expect them to be and the large cast certainly held their own.

I felt there were some war movie cliches here and there, but the Japanese were portrayed with respect and, I assume, realism. The battle felt like a very near thing to me, like it could easily have gone the other way with a bit less bravery and persistence on the part of the American fliers. Plus it showed only two planes returning in the end, but someone said they lost half their men. Perhaps the rest landed on different carriers and was just unclear. But as I said, I knew little of the details of the battle going in.