Midway (2019)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.
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Midway pays tribute to fallen American heroes even as the film may also be a spiritual sequel to an earlier Pacific-set World War 2 film, Pearl Harbor .
Director Roland Emmerich thankfully relies on the (barely) competent special effects to make the battle scenes exciting but otherwise, there’s a bunch of second-rate aerial photography and copycat shots from Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” (like a tired p.o.v.
Oh, it's not "Pearl Harbor" horrific, and most of the actors do their best with a wholly clunky script that plays like an homage to John Wayne "war pictures," but this "Midway" was made for the ADHD generation.
Both of these specimens of testosterone-fueled all-American derring-do (played by Brits who periodically struggle with their accents) are real historical figures, as are almost all of the characters in Midway , which attempts to dramatize the most famous naval battle of World War II by drawing equal inspiration from the monotonous historical reenactments of 1970’s Tora! Tora! Tora! , the butt-numbing soap-opera spectacle of 2001’s Pearl Harbor , and the Irwin Allen influences of Emmerich’s own disaster movies.
That’s not to say the script has to go into full-on weepy romance territory like Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” (2001), but Moore is too big a star not to use her considerable talents.
Nobody had to invent a character for Ben Affleck to play who was everywhere at once in “Pearl Harbor” (even in The Battle of Britain).
Watch Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima , or Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge for better Pacific theater films.
In an era when there have been so many interesting, holistic, sensitive takes on war – 1917 , Hacksaw Ridge , Unbroken , Dunkirk, Jojo Rabbit – this seems like an unnecessary, jingoistic, tin-eared throwback.
Not as visually stunning as Christopher Nolan’s gorgeously and magically crafted Dunkirk .
If one could criticize Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk for having similarly thin characters, he more than made up for it by making the Allied escape look consistently claustrophobic and believable.
Of course films are not meant to be teaching tools in the sense of a good book, but “Midway” never actually utilizes its historical basis to generate good drama, or artistry like Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.”
It doesn’t reinvent the war movie, as Spielberg did with Saving Private Ryan or Christopher Nolan did with Dunkirk , and nor does it deliver new revelations about the Midway story.
Perhaps “Midway” is going for the kind of enforced distance Christopher Nolan brought to the far better “Dunkirk,” but Nolan is a master of cinematic coldness.
Roland Emmerich ( Stargate , The Day After Tomorrow ) knows how to stage epic action scenes.
Director Roland Emmerich proudly stands by his big budget, special effects pictures, but for every “Stargate” (1994) or “Independence Day” (1996), he badly misses twice as often with mindless, overcooked action films like “Godzilla” (1998), “10,000 BC” (2008), “2012” (2009), and “Independence Day: Resurgence” (2015).
Sure, there will also likely be explosions and a giant cast, but the man never skimps on making every story epic, in movies like Stargate, Independence Day (and its ill-advised sequel), The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and White House Down).
Best known for his bombastic blockbusters "Independence Day," "Stargate" and "The Day After Tomorrow," the German filmmaker maximizes his considerable skills at building exciting action sequences - putting audiences in the cockpit of dive-bombing fighter jets, inside the cramped confines of a submarine surrounded by depth charges and on the blazing decks of a bombed-out aircraft career - while struggling to craft a cohesive narrative, fully realized characters and authentic dialogue.