Its the damnedest thing- after Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and so many other cautionary, war-is-hell movies (which I would describe as sophisticated, grown-up war movies), I would have thought that a revisionary, brutal and sobering film about the war in the Pacific and in particular the battle at Midway would have been timely. Pick two characters, maybe a pilot for the air battles, and a naval gunner or engineer to depict the sea battles between the carriers/destroyers, and show the film from their perspective, focus purely on them. What they can see, what they can hear, what they feel. Forgo all the military planning, all the top-brass material, just show what it was like for the grunts following the orders and trying to do their job and somehow survive. I suppose what I’m suggesting is something akin to Dunkirk, but more focused and minus all that three-timelines nonsense.
And drop all the CGI hysterics, you’re going to need it obviously, but show it sparingly and effectively- narrow it down, less of the wide-angle video-game stuff and more of the brutal, vicarious you-are-there-and-its-bloody-scary stuff.
Anyway, I don’t know why I’m writing all this down, because Roland Emmerich’s Midway is not that movie. Its practically a pseudo-sequel to Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbour from 2001, as if that film was critically lauded and wildly successful and everyone demanded a follow-up. It has the same silly virtual camera moves and video-game CGI and clunky dialogue, and like Pearl Harbour, rather feels out of its time and awkwardly ill-judged. Sure, its a noble and well-intentioned effort but it just feels… wrong. Midway had the opportunity to be the anti-Pearl Harbour and blew it, pretty much giving us more of the same, as if that were A Good Thing.
Besides which, its clear that the more CGI you have in your film, the more the quality level falls and it becomes more just, well, an animated movie. Some of the visual effects/CGI in Midway is very, very good (some shots are breathtaking) but some of it is quite poor. It just seems inevitable, and some of the CGI in this is surprisingly woeful (some panoramic shots, for instance one during burials in particular, look like pre-vis work rather than completed shots). The CGI can be wonderful and enable shots/sequences impossible before but should be used sparingly to ensure impact and moreover help with the quality levels. Naturally you lean less on the CGI and maybe you have more time for character study and acting performances and good writing… and maybe that’s why they lean on the CGI so much, because good writing appears to be unfashionable in film these days.
Anyway, suffice to say that Midway was everything I expected, its not a complete disaster and no doubt was well-intentioned, but a great cast is pretty much wasted, some pretty banal dialogue at times doing them few favours, and, er, leave it at that.
MIdway (2019) is currently streaming on Amazon Prime
the ghost of 82 
Everything I’d seen about this led me to write it off as Pearl Harbor 2 and, well, now I feel vindicated!
That said, I’ve never actually seen Pearl Harbor (I wrote it off because, er, it was Pearl Harbor). It’s the only Michael Bay film I’ve not seen, so for completism’s sake, if nothing else, it will remain higher on my to-watch list than Midway.
Pearl Harbour and Midway would make for a pretty terrifying double-bill, I’m certain of that. Funnily enough, it would be interesting getting your take on Pearl Harbour- I’d be curious to hear how badly its aged- I mean, it was pretty dire when it came out but I can imagine its got whole other levels of farce now. Mind, Bay is still pretty much making the same films the same way now -that Netflix thing he did that was released a few months back had similar levels of OTT weirdness – so maybe it hasn’t really aged at all.
Over to you!
Pingback: The 2020 List: July – the ghost of 82