Midway

As someone very knowledgeable about the subject, I was somewhat disappointed. Whether it was the wrinkled uniforms, the painful dialogue, the over-the-top dramatics and exaggerated explosions (hey, it's Emmerich!)... it was clear the film was not made for people like me who know the details and the characters very well.

The rating depends greatly on the target audience. It's clear this film was made for a younger audience, and as such, it does a very good job of conveying the history quite accurately. It's a lot to take on with a 2:20 movie (complete with a 6-month summary of events leading up to the title battle) and it does a fine job of that.

Correct history of this great nation tragically just isn't taught anymore, so I heartily applaud any effort to do so. I just wonder if younger audiences have any desire to learn it. So if I'm rating from that perspective, it jumps up a few points.

I just wish a little more care with the details and script had been taken to leave the older audience satisfied from our knowledge level.

Midway feels like a made-for-TV movie. It's full of cliched dialogue, acting, and plot points. When most of your movie hinges on the lead actor's performance, and that performance turns out to be melodramatic and cheesy, you've got a problem. Also, the visual effects were inconsistent, swinging from impressive to corny. This isn't a bad movie, but it's going to be easy for me to forget about it.

I'm just coming from the cinema, Midway is a worth to see movie, but the filmmakers used a bit too much CGI, sometimes you feel like watching a Medal of Honor game trailer.

Midway is not just the name of the place where a historic WWII sea battle took place between the Americans and the Japanese, it's also the point in this film where I realised I didn't know what was going on. Director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla, Independence Day, 2012) is obviously no slouch when it comes to action scenes, bringing us some truly astonishing battle sequences that provide much bang for your buck, but he struggles to tell his complex historical story with any coherence.

As the movie cuts back and forth between the American and Japanese forces, with numerous ships, locations, characters, and much detailed wartime strategy to take in, it's easy to lose track of what's what and, more importantly, who is who, making it hard to feel anything when they meet their inevitable fate in a ball of flames and twisted metal (the most emotional part of the whole film comes right at the end when photos with captions show the real-life people who were instrumental in the battle).

Of course, those who are watching, not for a history lesson or for heart-rending pathos, but for thrilling scenes of destruction and derring-do, are more than catered for with countless huge explosions, plenty of machine-gun fire and loads of impressive aerial combat. While most of this is realised through the use of CGI, it's well-handled and, for the most part, very convincing.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Critics are trashing this film, I went into it skeptical. After, I'm not so sure why. They tell a simplified story of the events leading up to, and eventually the battle of midway. You get to see two sides of life, the Japanese and the American forces. The script is fine, acting is pretty good in my opinion as well (shout out to Dennis Quaid, he is a great salty kinda guy). CGI was not that bad, especially for fast paced scenes. Only complaint is it is a bit long, which I understand due to how much they wanted to include. But there were 2-3 times I thought it might end, but there were still a few minutes left. In the end, a solid war movie that, in my opinion, does a great job showing some brutality of war, in addition to brothership and slice of life of the time. A solid film to honor the brave men and women that died for a better future.