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[agracier]

Well guys, I went to see Midway tonight and it really surpassed all my expectations. It is no Pearl Harbour and no Independence Day. It is magnitudes better than both and highly enjoyable with really great and believable cgi. I am not so knowledgeable about details on aviation or ordnance (despite playing Il-2 ... he he), but nothing seemed out of place or contrived. Even when showing naval battle groups, to me it seemed like the normal distance between vessels was more or less respected.

There was no love romance element like in Pearl Harbor either. Just a few scenes with worried wives, but nothing excessive at all.

I was not expecting it to be good and enjoyable movie, but right at the start the action begins. I think it helps to know a bit about the history of Midway because some of the crucial events and details might be difficult for a normal viewer to understand.

It could certainly do with an extended version when it comes out on DVD. Many of the beautiful shots of battle groups, vessels and aircraft were just a tad too short.

But otherwise i would heartily recommend the movie. It is not too teary-eyed, and very big on air combat and carriers. I am at a loss to figure out out some scenes were done in cgi. But in any case, hats off!

[SAS~Malone]

thanks for the review, agracier!
i'll definitely be giving it a look

[sniperton]

i would heartily recommend the movie

Good to hear that you found the movie better than I did the trailer.
One more favourable review from someone else and I'll reconsider watching it. 

[agracier]

Good to hear that you found the movie better than I did the trailer.
One more favourable review from someone else and I'll reconsider watching it. 

The trailer was not very representative of the movie. That's often the case. I know a few movie fans who absolutely refuse to watch any trailer whatsoever.

One thing that i did notice this morning when doing some looking on Google Earth. There is a scene in the movie of an attack on Roi Atoll in the Marshalls. In the movie the island is made to look like a mountainous place, with deep valleys and high peaks. Makes for dramatic aerial combat scenes, but judging from reality, Roi Atoll was as about as flat as a billiard table ...

Otherwise, I still can't think of anything less than flattering to say. Maybe that the movie was too short.

And given that most members saw Pearl Harbor despite what they heard about it, Midway has more and more realistic aerial combat scenes and also more scenes from the Japanese point of view.

My wife really loved Pearl Harbor, probably from the love story. She took the combat as an unavoidable aspect. In Midway there is no love or romantic story angle. It is all about aerial combat and grand strategy.

[tomoose]

Agracier;
thanks for the review.  I'm willing to give it a look despite having reservations.
As the old saying goes "never judge a book by its cover" then I guess we shouldn't judge a movie by its trailer, LOL.

[sniperton]

As someone else pointed out at the BoX site, the trailer looked very much like this War Thunder video:
https://youtu.be/0sfA-NsbzJY?t=94

[Checkyersix]

Thanks Agracier!

[Flamer50]

Roland Emmerich?  Isn't he the genius that gave us The Day After Tomorrow and 2012?  Both ridiculous movies.  On the other hand he also did Stargate which IMHO is a pretty good sci-fi movie.

I've seen the trailers for Midway and at first thought it had been done by the same clown who did Pearl Harbor only to find out it is Emmerich.  I think most Second World War historians will probably pull their hair out LOL.  I've no doubt it will be an entertaining movie but as far as historical accuracy...meh. 

This will be World Of Warplanes/World of Warships; Midway.   A console game brought to "life" as it were. 

tomoose, here's RollingStone's review...

‘Midway’: Roland Emmerich’s Take on WWII Battle Dive Bombs
A star-studded cast does their best with cartoonish characterization in what should be an epic war movie

By PETER TRAVERS

If Midway really was the hot shit it thinks it is, we’d have something to talk about. But this spare-no-expense production about the most vital naval battle of WWII merely plasters the latest in digital effects over the same war-time movie tropes that Hollywood has been pedaling for decades. Director Roland Emmerich scored a box-office bonanza by showing the United States kicking alien ass in Independence Day. So why shouldn’t he take on a real battle with real heroes and a real enemy and show how the country made history and the world safe for cinematic jingoism?

Yes, Midway is a big swing at a big subject. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, it became crucial — six months after that 1941 surprise attack — for the U.S. to win the battle with Japan over control of the Midway atoll, a victory that would turn the tide of the war in the Pacific. Emmerich gets the names, dates, and places right, but his film is a hollow shell stuffed with marshmallow. Hollywood basically made the same movie in 1976 with top stars — Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum — hoping the noise of battle would drown out their risible dialogue.

It didn’t then and it doesn’t now. Wes Tooke’s screenplay never met a cliché it didn’t like. And it doesn’t matter how many name actors you throw into the mix. Look, it’s Woody Harrelson as Admiral Nimitz, the commander of the Pacific Fleet. And here’s Dennis Quaid as Vice Admiral ‘Bull’ Halsey, living up to his name. And there’s Aaron Eckhart as Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, who led a retaliatory raid on Tokyo for bombing Pearl Harbor. Each actor dutifully barks his lines without for a moment suggesting his character has more than one dimension.

There’s ample testosterone among the lesser luminaries as well. British actor Ed Skrein (Deadpool, Game of Thrones) struggles manfully, not just with the role of real-life rebel flyboy, Lieutenant Richard “Dick” Best, but with the jarring Jersey accent he uses to play him. Best even has a tough wife (Mandy Moore) and a cowboy attitude that won’t quit even when it puts him up in the face of Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky (Luke Evans), who will later relent and say, “Men like Dick Best are the reason we’re gonna win this war.” Really? The bravery of these men is indisputable, what’s galling is the superficial manner in which they’re presented. Nick Jonas showing up just long enough as courageous sailor Bruno Gaido to get his name on the poster.

In other areas, Emmerich should be cut some slack, starting with his fair representation of the Japanese side. In a prologue set in 1937, we see Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Etsushi Toyokawa) trying to avoid the conflict he could see coming. He wasn’t the only one to see it. Patrick Wilson excels as U.S. intelligence officer Edwin T. Layton, who worked with a ragtag team of codebreakers to make sure our side would have the strategic advantage this time when the enemy struck.

You’d expect Emmerich to be in his wheelhouse staging the attacks from the air and sea. He even offers up the horrific sight of Japanese planes strafing Pearl Harbor as a prelude to the action on Midway. But repetition over two-and-a-half hours dulls the effect of what we are watching and whatever purpose there is in watching it. Emmerich can crack the whip on computer pixels like nobody’s business. But in sacrificing a reckoning on the human toll of war for cardboard characterization and showoff fx, he’s left an empty space where the soul of the film should be.

  for RollingStone
 

[Type83Fighter]

Part of me wants to see it, the part that has a keen interest in anything related to the Pacific theatre.

The other part, the part with a deep love of cinema knows that this movie will be filled with uninteresting characters, flat cinematography, sigh-inducing dialogue, and everything that makes Roland Emmerich movie the way it is.

I do like the simple, retro poster though.

[eyler]

Just got home from watching Midway.  5 stars.  Lots of action, and accurately depicted the events of the day: Devastators slaughtered, American torpedo failure, Bombing 6 following the destroyer to the fleet, etc.  The movie focuses on the Enterprise, and the men of Bombing 6.  The cgi was very intense, especially the AA fire from the ships.  Sone may find it over done, but to me it was a more accurate reflection of real AA fire than previous movies I’ve watched. 
The flying scenes felt real, no hammerheads like in RedTails.  The Dauntless was a tough bird, and maneuverable, and was depicted that way in this movie.  It also depicted, that the better pilots got more out of their planes.  The ones who dropped bombs too soon missed, the ones who bored in made hits.
I was pumped to go see it, and it didn’t disappoint.

[UberDemon]

Thank you for the info.

It looked promising, unlike "Pearl Harbor", which not only made me throw up a little thinking of the movie, it is sooo far inferior to "TORA! TORA! TORA!"  Thinking of it, the original Midway was not that great compared to TORAx3, although it had Charlton Heston, but it was still alright.  I am definitely watching this one.

When I retire, I will move to Hollywood and will become a film director.  I will produce WW2 movies in which the lead character will be Lucy Lawless for all films.  Because frankly, if it does not have Lucy Lawless, why would anyone care to watch it anyway?????

https://www.google.com/search?q=lucy+lawless&sxsrf=ACYBGNTjljNfPNQLlkG_h85RNNtR2h-wSA:1573330166993&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf597N993lAhUSKa0KHVRhDugQ_AUIESgB&biw=1564&bih=826#spf=1573330171484

[Ivan-le-Rouge]

I saw it yesterday.
-B26 armed with bomb instead of torpedo
-late model B25 for Doolitlle raid.
-SDB fly like a star wars Tie Fighter
-ground crew, sailor and rear gunner shoot by 20mm cannon and machine gun : only a few split of blood. Don't know war is so clean.
-CGI ships and planes are sometimes quite poor.

Not a masterpiece.