When I first saw the trailers for the Roland Emmerich 'Midway' movie I was impressed by the CGI but a little worried that the story might be 'son of Pearl Harbor'. PH was, of course, the 2001 Michael Bay movie which put US fighters over Pearl Harbor during the attack (there were none), staged improbable dogfights in among the sinking ships and burning buildings and then put the fighter pilots into the seats of Doolittle's B-25s to raid Tokyo. All very wrong.
On Covid-19 lockdown shopping in Tesco [UK supermarket] yesterday I spotted Midway on DVD and thought: "Oh what the hell?" and bought it. I was not disappointed. Emmerich's approach to the subject is that of a dramatised documentary – it's almost 'Sink The Bismarck' but in colour. Two of the characters were given enough back story to explain who they were married-to but little time was wasted on back story and the majority of the film is at-sea and in-the-air.
Some of us may remember the previous Midway film from the 1970s (Charlton Heston, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, etc) and that now looks very pedestrian compared to Emmerich's film. The first film also bogged down in an improbable plot about Chuck's son dating a Japanese girl. We really didn't need it.
We open the new Midway movie with yet another a version of the Pearl Harbor attack – some of the Japanese fighters are a bit too low and close to the viewer but I will forgive Emmerich. The Arizona blows up and eventually sinks and we see the scale of the harbour-wide damage in ensuing scenes. We next get the US riposte – with the Doolittle raid on Tokyo – and the US pilots trying to escape into China. The Japanese attack on Midway is implied to be a response to the Doolittle raid but I recall Midway was always 'on the books' and the Japanese merely stepped it up.
I should point out that, like Tora, Tora, Tora, both sides are shown in detail and we DO get the Japanese viewpoint at key moments. I am not sure about the accuracy of the scene where Yamamoto catches Nagumo berating his staff at a wargame for 'cheating' and putting the American carriers at-sea and to the north east of the island, which is where they would be in real life, but it does pre-figure the plot. It also cleverly implies Japan's very real complacency. As the Japanese themselves said, later, they were suffering from 'victory disease' – they had won too much, too easily and just got careless.
We get a snatch of the Battle of Coral Sea and see Lexington sinking and Yorktown's deck damage but the epic 72-hour repair of the flight deck is cut and we next see amazed Enterprise crew looking to see Yorktown emerge from the mist at sea.
We do get famous film director John Ford on Midway Island (where he really was, making a documentary) and I would like to have seen a little more of him and the actual attack on the island, especially the bit where a Zero pilot allegedly flew along the runway UPSIDE DOWN at low altitude trying to draw US fire away from the incoming bombers. It was well witnessed by the Marines but is not in the movie.
The first US strike follows the established story and we get the US submarine attack which caused a Japanese destroyer to be left behind to pin the sub down and then race off after the fleet at high speed. The lost Dauntlesses see the destroyer below and follow it to where the main fleet really is. The attack is spectacular and my only criticism ss too much flak tracer and too many aircraft shot down in the dive-bombing. Most were lost to Zeros as the Japanese 25mm was slow-firing. The 25mm guns ARE shown firing slowly, but somehow they then manage to generate a blizzard of flak up in the air. Also strangely missing are any Wildcat fighters, I did not see one – either defending the US carriers or at Midway.
The Japanese counter-strike is a little skimped and we only see its effect and the final U.S. strike removes the last carrier, which is scuttled. We do get 'between decks' footage of the Japanese carriers, especially one where the hanger deck fuel ignites as the damage control officers are trying to flood it with CO2. The whole ship explodes. Also shown is the Japanese admiral and captain who refused to leave their burning carrier and who are torpedoed, by their own destroyer, to scuttle the crippled carrier.
The only puzzle for me was the whole 'AF' story was a little truncated. In truth the US knew that a mystery site 'AF' was going to be attacked from Japanese signal intercepts but did not know where it was. On a hunch the US sent a secure message to Midway telling the island to broadcast a clear uncoded and insecure message that they were 'short of water'. The US then picked up a coded Japanese signal saying 'AF is short of water' which set the scene for the ambush. The film seems to imply the water shortage signal was sent accidentally and I am wondering if a longer and more accurate version will turn up in a director's cut of Midway.
The most improbable scene – where a US rear gunner jumps into the back seat of a parked aeroplane, shoots down a twin-engined bomber and then has his aircraft cut in two by the wing of the bomber as it slices across the deck is TRUE! It actually happened, as shown.
Overall the tone of the film cut out a lot of the posturing and machismo that we get in some US war films and I would be tempted to say it was almost British in the way it was produced. I mean that as a compliment!
On first viewing I would give Midway an 8.5 out of 10 for acting, CGI special effects, accuracy, tone, the whole number. On further viewing I might push that .5 either way. If you have not seen it yet, Midway is worth the effort and not the usual tub-thumping dross we have come to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Barry
's first experience with 1:4800 scale naval models.
