EBL: Midway: A Review 🇺🇸

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Midway: A Review 🇺🇸

Midway (2019)

This is a very good movie. The ensemble of actors all do a great job--but ultimately credit must go to Roland Emmerich (who produced and directed the film) and Wes Tooke (who wrote the screen play).

Yes--like Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor--it squeezes in a lot with not enough time to really address events such as Pearl Harbor and Doolittle's Tokyo Raid (or the retaliation against the Chinese civilians who assisted Doolittle after that raid). It does attempt to explain code breaking (like the Imitation Game).

Still reviewing the historical events leading to Midway is critical to explain the significance of that battle to audiences today (who are unfamiliar with how bad things were after Pearl Harbor). While character development is difficult in a film like this and essentially does not happen (think Longest Day), I found this film overall compelling and definitely better than Pearl Harbor or the earlier Midway (1976). A mini series adaptation (like Band of Brothers or The Pacific) might have addressed the character development issues--but at the expense of the big screen movie battle scenes.

This is an action movie. And Emmerich delivers action.

The aerial battle and naval scenes are skillfully portrayed and both thrilling and frightening to watch. Some of the battles are made more visually dramatic (clustering ships and aircrafts to get them in the frame) than they were in real life. While military historians might be bothered by that--I understand visually why that is done.

I had a few criticisms--which are pretty minor. The Marshall Islands depicted in the film were obviously Hawaii (which bothered me since the islands attacked: Kwajalein, Wotje, and Taroa are atolls--not volcanic mountains). There were also scenes after Pearl Harbor on Hawaii which I doubt were accurate (due to strict black out and security restrictions after that attack). Other than those quibbles--the film attempted to stay reasonably accurate.

Raised on Hoe Cakes criticized the politically correct comment at the end. Fair enough--but you can be respectful of enemy soldiers (as individuals)--while hating the evil forces that motivated them (it is not like Longest Day wasn't sympathetic to Germans). ROHC hated it. John Nolte loved it. What can I say? YMMV.

This is a Quora perspective closer to mine and Nolte's:

Is the Battle of Midway movie historically accurate?

William Toti, Captain, US Navy (retired)

Updated Dec 2 · Upvoted by Andrew Gerson, studied at The University of Life (2007) and Jamie Burr, MA History & Naval History, Duke University (1972)

My impression as an Annapolis graduate, student of EB Potter the man who literally “wrote the book” on the battle, 26-year Navy veteran including 9 years out of Pearl Harbor, and honorary survivor of the World War II cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35). If you want to bypass the quibbles and get straight to the meat of this review, please skip to my last paragraph.

The Battle of Midway is a story that's well known to most Annapolis graduates of my generation and earlier. The battle was a key inflection point in World War II, perhaps the pivotal moment changing the course of the Pacific War.

Although I loved seeing Henry Fonda as Nimitz in the 1976 version of "Midway" (Fonda was to play Nimitz in "In Harms Way" as well), unfortunately, I found that movie to be surprisingly dull, historically inaccurate, unnecessarily melodramatic, and generally not very good.

Because my experience is that more recent movie renderings of historical subjects usually don't improve the historical accuracy (I'm thinking of 2001's God-awful Ben Affleck "Pearl Harbor" vis-à-vis 1970's "Tora Tora Tora"), I did not have high hopes for this new "Midway."

I was wrong.

In short, "Midway" is a terrific movie. Not only does it get the history (mostly) right, it's a tight, elegant, and superb rendering that does the historical figures proud. It succeeds to pack way more into its 2 hour, 18 minute run length than you can imagine. It covers the attack on Pearl Harbor, the PACFLT-Washington tension & dynamic, Nimitz's ascension to command of the Pacific, LCDR Layton's contribution to the intelligence picture, Joe Rochefort's robe-wearing genius, Yamamoto's soul-searching, Halsey's tenacity, the ascendency of naval aviation, a tiny bit of the submarine contributions to the battle, and-oh yeah-the actual battle itself, to include the incredible, unbelievable jaw-dropping (but true!) heroism of our Hornet, Yorktown and Enterprise naval aviators. And it does all this justice, in a superb bit of moviemaking.

Can a 26-year Navy veteran like me find nits to pick on? Of course:

- I saw a few collar devices that weren't pinned on right (I'm talking about you, Layton!)

- At least one scene that is historical legend but didn't really happen

- The substantially underrepresented submarine role in the battle (being a submariner, perhaps my biggest regret)

- Some Annapolis grads wearing their class ring on the wrong hand (tradition has us wearing our rings on our left hand, not the right)

- Sailors not "squaring away" their Dixie cup hats the way they would have back then

- I wish the Pearl Harbor officers' club was as nice as they portrayed it in the movie!

- They placed a non-existent cemetery on Pearl Harbor's Hospital Point

- Kimmel didn't watch the attack from the Pacific Fleet headquarters, he watched it from his office on the Pearl Harbor submarine base (which later became my office and is on the national register of historic places)

- They would not have worn their service dress khaki in the Officer's Club-- they would have worn service dress whites (chokers with ribbons)

- The band in the O-club would have been locals not sailors (they missed an opportunity to have somebody like Gabby Pahinui playing!)

But the good stuff way exceeds the nits:

- They got the Pacific Fleet headquarters right-- it's now the Pearl Harbor shipyard commander's building

- They got the torpedo failures right-- torpedoes were terrible early in the war

- They got the Yorktown repair in 48 hours in Drydock 4 in the Pearl Harbor shipyard right-- the shipyard rendering was near perfect

- They got the code breaking room in the basement of the PACFLT headquarters right (when I was stationed there the room was being used to store furniture and I petitioned to get it on the national register of historic places)

- It might have been a lot of CGI, but it was really good CGI. They rendered Pearl Harbor almost perfectly. I could even make out my Ford Island house from my time as commodore, as well as a historically accurate rendering of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, the Pearl Harbor submarine base, and of course, the ships and planes.

- Something I never thought I'd hear myself say: Woody Harrelson was superb as Nimitz. He's no Fonda, but he was understated and believable, the way I've always seen Nimitz in my mind. Not a casting idea I would have thought of, but it worked!

- Except for the collar device issue listed above, the uniforms were mostly right for the period, from the flat shoulder boards that were being used in that era, to the beaten-up look the ship's laundry would have given Service Dress Khaki, to the way the sailors were dressed, to the way the pilots wore their wings, etc.

- It even brought out the fact that movie director John Ford was on Midway doing a documentary when the battle went down. The fact that Ford volunteered for the Navy, saw battle, and was injured, while John Wayne remained (in his mind) safely at home, become a point of tension between the two men, with Ford being one of the few who felt comfortable belittling Wayne for his lack of service as the years went by.

- I really liked the outtro mini-bios of the real characters at the end. I didn't learn anything new there, but thought they were extremely well done.

In the end the 2+ hours flew by for me. What a terrific way to celebrate Veteran's Day.

Of course, Roland Emmerich's prior movies have been, on the whole, simpleminded blockbusters. But this time he took a risk by doing something thoughtful, respectful, accurate, and artistic. The only way to ensure movies like this continue to be made is for the public to show we care about history and accuracy, and to make this movie a success. I very much hope it does well. Then maybe we have a chance of getting the right movie made about the Indianapolis.

A final thought: I've been disgusted by many of the cynical, snarky reviews written by professional movie reviewers, many of which sneer at the bravery of the warriors depicted. Yes, the dialog in this movie is sometimes simple, tired, and trite. A few of the characters are not well developed, particularly the women. It's perfectly appropriate for reviewers to criticize elements of moviemaking. One reviewer made fun of the line of dialog where Best says "This is for Pearl Harbor." There is nothing silly or unreasonable about that line. You can bet one of the pilots actually said something like that that day. As somebody who survived 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, when I later went to Afghanistan, you can bet if I had the chance to do so I would have said, "This is for Gerry DeConto," one of my friends who didn't make it out that day. But many these sneering reviewers have gone on to say to readers that because of these weaknesses, they should not see "Midway." Keep in mind that there were similar elements of Spielberg's "Lincoln" that could be considered inaccurate and/or over-the-top movie-making (most of the scenes depicted in Congress, for example), but on the whole the events portrayed in that movie are important for Americans to understand. Same is true here. So the point I want to make is this: a movie can have elements of poor moviemaking, and yet be an important movie for viewers to watch. "Midway" is one such movie. It depicts a poorly understood event in American history, but one that Americans should be exposed to. The events depicted, and the people depicted, are real. They really did these things. The bravery was real. Americans need to know this, and reviewers who have likely never risked anything in their lives should have the good graces not to sneer at those who have.

While not perfect--it is unabashedly patriotic--not in a jingoistic way, but in portraying these men as heroes who knew what dangers they were facing and faced them anyway to protect their country (and I am sure that is why some critics did not like it). This is an excellent movie to go see this Veterans Day weekend. I recommend you go see it. As you can guess: it is a film to be seen on the big screen.

History vs Hollywood: Midway

Raised on Hoe Cakes : Midway

Time: Midway: Film vs Real History

Hot Air: Midway scores a knockout blow

The Objective Standard: What if the Axis won

Deadline: Dr. Sleep snoozes--while Midway outperforms expectations

Instapundit: All of this and World War II: Hollywood revisits battle of Midway

Rotten Tomatoes: Midway: Media film critics were 40% positive but audiences gave it 90%

Breitbart: Loved Midway, Midway wins weekend at box office. and Midway stomps Dr. Sleep

EBL: The Fighting Sullivans, The Battle of Midway: Told from the Japanese Perspective, and The Battle of Midway Seventy Five Years Later

AoSHQ: Saturday Evening Movie Thread 11-09-2019 [Hosted by: TheJamesMadison] Nothing really about Midway (although a reference to Emmerich)--but it does focus on Martin Scorsese's feud over Marvel (in an interesting way).