jackjack-2

A real winner. I lived through WWII and worked at the Los Alamos Laboratories after WWII. Colin Murphy's acting was superb. Unfortunately, the unnecessary nudity tarnished the film, appealing to the prurient, but adding nothing to the story. Also, the vulgarity in the movie was unrealistic. People didn't talk that way during that period. I worked with the scientist during that time and the only swear word I ever heard was "damn it" The film did not accurately depict Los Alamos. The engineers ensured the security of Los Alamos by building the facility on a high plateau with steep walls, approximately 1,000 feet high, allowing access only through one road. Pine forests covered the entire plateau. No one was allowed in unless they had a Secret Clearance, and if one worked in the Labs, they needed at least a Top-Secret Clearance or higher , depending on what they were working on.

I have been wathing shows on PBS for 50 years and World on Fire is the worst show that PBS has ever broadcast. I am a veteran of WWII and very familar with its history starting with 1938. World on Fire is so historically inaccurate that it laughfable, more of a comedy of errors. It does not even qualify as historical fiction.

Although I am a great fan of Helen Hunt, her role as an American Radio Reporter is just nonsense. There were no women reporters in radio during WWII. The scene showing the Germans killing Polish soldiers trying to surrender after the capture of Danzig is another fiction. During the early stages of WWII, the German Army respected prisoners and generally did so until after Germany invaded Russia. The Army particularly respected women and the scene where a German soldier shoots a mother is absolutely ridiculous.

That a member of the British Embassy smuggled a child out of Poland is nonsense. He could only have taken his wife. The child would have been taken off the train before it went into Germany.

After watching just three episodes, I ain't watching no more. It is too ridiculous to waste time.

This film should win the Raspberry Award for the worst film of the year. It is a cheap remake of the 1976 movie of the same name but which had real actors in the cast which this film did not. The cast consisted of would bes that probably were extras in high school dramas. The original film had a cast of Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glen Ford, Hal Holbrook, Robert Mitchum. James Coburn , Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert just to name a few. The best this film could come up with was a hamWoody Harellson who never could act his way out of a wet paper bag and is horribly amatuerish in this film.

I have a special interest in the Battle of Midway. As a youngster, my father was stationed on Midway when the war broke out. He survived a shelling on December 7 which was nothing compared to the pasting Midway took during the Battle of Midway while he was there. It was a very tense time for my mother and her children at this time.

About all the makers of the film achieve is some degree of accuracy in the details of the equipment shown in the film. The film uses a lot of special effects that were not available in the original film but the original film depicts the events more accurately and it was much easier to understand. One of the problems with this film, is it tries to go to far back to tell the story by trying to make an intelligence officer seem more prescient than he actually was. The film also tends to exaggeration in trying to make its heroes bigger heroes than they were. That was unnecessary because they were great heroes without any exaggeration.

One inaccuracy was the depiction of the Japanese killing a captured American aircraft crewman by throwing him off a ship tied to an anchor. In fact, the Japanese would never have wasted a useful anchor and actually tied him to water filled fuel cans. Except for the execution, the scene like many in the film, is fiction because the only record of the execution was a brief entry in a ship's log. All three of the captured American airmen were similarly executed.

While the Battle of Midway was the beginning of the end of the war, one thing that is ignored in the film is as decisive as it was, it still could have been disastrous for the U.S. in that after the carrier warfare ceased, the Japanese had a very strong armada that could have easily taken Midway even though the Japanese no longer had any carriers. Even though the U.S. had two carriers left, neither had enough aircraft or crews to do anything to deter the Japanese had they chosen to continue their attack on Midway.

My recommendation is that people who want to watch a movie about the Battle of Midway should watch the 1976 version.