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Midway

Midway

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Stock Footage!?
Review: This movie is bad because of two reasons: the use of stock footage of the battle of Midway instead of recreating the events and all the actors are speaking English instead of their native languages. The reason that "The Longest Day," "Patton," "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "A Bridge Too Far" are better is because they only use stock footage when showing a WWII newsreel. All the battles are recreated. The latter reason is also a similar connection to the forementioned movies. Anybody who has seen the Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune in his Kurosawa masterpieces knows his gruf, hard voice. He doesn't sound like that at all when he speaks English, he instead sounds like a Japanese man trying to speak English. These two problems ruin all the credibility of the movie. The extra star is to showing the movie in its orignial Panavision.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My Favorite War Movie
Review: THIS IS MY FAVORITE WAR MOVIE. BUT WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT IS THAT IT IS FAITHFUL TO THE BATTLE THEY HAVE THE SAME CHARACTERS AND WHAT NOT. ALL THE PERFORMANCES ARE GOOD AND THE BATTLE SEQUENCES ARE THRILLING AND EXCELLENT AND SUSPENSFUL. THE AERIAL SEQUENCES ARE COOL BUT WHAT I LIKE IS THAT IT IS TRUE DEPICTS ONE OF THE MOST IMPROTANT BATTLES IN HISTORY. ALSO I REALLY LIKE THE MUSIC FROM JOHN WILLIAMS IT HAS AN EFFECT ON THIS MOVIE WHICH MAKES IT SUITED FOR THIS MOVIE BUT IT'S JUST SO GOOD. I WISH THAT THEY WOULD RELEASE THIS MOVIE INTO THEATERS JUST ONE MORE TIME SO I COULD SEE IT IN ALL IT'S GLORY AND ON THE BIG SCREEN.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: obvious flaws, but still a facinating movie
Review: Midway is a very good movie. I was shocked, during the disasterous American torpedo bomber raids on the Japanese carriers, that the Zero pilots would pick off the bombers' rear gunners and you could see so much blood. It was horrifying and exciting at the same time. There was some hideously unnecessary inclusion of wartime footage during action sequences, and you can actually see aircraft which are irrelevant to the battle flying around as if they were (Curtiss Helldivers, squadrons of Grumman Avengers, Hellcats). Still, when I first saw this movie in the seventh grade I loved it because it told a good story, and I like it just as much eight years later. You will like it, too. I recommend it!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This movie was OK
Review: This movie was OK. It explained a lot of info on the battle for Midway. I don't know if other people like it. Probaly not,i'm a big history and navy buff. If your like me rent this movie,you'll like it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poorer!Poorer!Poorer!
Review: Some of your reviewers must have been watching a different movie to me. This one is a shocker with bad production values,wooden acting,mistakes galore but I loved the final scene after the carrier has docked. Take a look at the couple of hundred people they rounded up in the background.They all seem to be still dressed circa 1976 and anyway which navy would let civilians anywhere near a naval base in the Pacific in 1942?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Okay, but could have been better
Review: This film wasn't bad but could have been so much better without (a) the totally unnecessary love affair between Heston's son and the nisei woman, (b) the dubbing of the Japanese voices (should have used subtitles), (c) the reference to Admiral Nimitz "missing the flatlands." (The Admiral's home was not in "the flatlands." It is in the Texas hill country not far from where Lyndon Johnson was born and raised.) (d) a reference to Nimitz having been able to walk across the nearest lake during the "dry season." There are no wet and dry seasons in Texas. The incidence of rainfall is quite unpredictable, but this film was made in 1976 when the prevailing view of Texas was that of the whole state being like "the Last Picture Show" (not that it has changed that much...) Oh, yeah, Henry Fonda did NOT look that much like Admiral Nimitz.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Film When It Sticks To History
Review: "Midway" has it's flaws to be sure. The pointless fictional sub-plot involving Charlton Heston's son and his Nisei fiancee seems like a concession to PC sensitivities about Nisei internment. The overuse of stock footage instead of constructing new miniatures doesn't help either and the Japanese characters should have spoken Japanese with subtitles. But when Midway sticks to real history, as it does for most of the film it is quite gripping and fascinating. It was because of this movie, which I first saw on the CBS Late Movie in 1981, that I became fascinated with the battle and ended up buying every book that's ever been written about it. As a result, I can never condemn this movie too harshly because of what it ultimately led me to.

I do wish though, that it could get a good DVD treatment, with the theatrical cut on one side (which uses John Williams "Midway March" for the end credits) and the longer TV-version on side two (which recreates the Battle of Coral Sea and uses the alternate "Men Of The Yorktown March" for the end credits). It certainly deserves this kind of DVD treatment a lot more than Steven Spielberg's hideous "1941" did.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Midway between "bad" & "sucks"
Review: This is not a movie for anybody who is interested in Naval history or has any knowledge of the ships and aircraft types that were actually in the battle. Besides Hestons' usual overblown acting, the movie is spoiled by outakes from actual combat footage shot long after Midway was a memory, involving aircraft types that were not in service at the time. Overhead views of modern(1950's & 60's) U.S. carriers only needed an Apollo or Gemini spacecraft bobbing in the water to complete the fiasco. This movie is one anachronism after another. For a far better portrayal of the events at Midway, I would recommend the television mini-series of Herman Wouks' "War and Remembrance", starring Robert Mitchum et. al. Although built around fictional characters, the historical research was better and skilled use of good models was better than bad use of inaccurate video. Skip this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So fun to watch...
Review: Well, I do like one of the TV versions of this film better. I used to own the VCR tape of it, and it had no Coral Sea battle like the TBS/TNT/ABC one has on TV. However, WGN showed it, and it omitted the Coral Sea battle. Depends on which station broadcasts it I guess. This film is great, but I don't like the fact it used glimpses of the footage in Tora Tora Tora during the plane attacks on Midway. But I absolutely love the historic footage though. I wish they would have shown nothing but historic footage, but revised it and added color. But this was in 1976, only that kind of technology is available nowadays. This movie easily beats Tora Tora Tora, althought that movie is more historically accurate and does not omit anything like how the Mikuma sinking and Mogami damaging are omitted. The US attacks from Midway such as the B-17s and TBFs also is not included, as is the IJN sub shelling Midway as a taunt at the end of the battle. But the movie is already 4+ hours long on TV, at least the one with Coral Sea is, wouldn't want anything longer than that.

It does, however have historically accurate ships, unlike the knowledge-impaired Tora Tora Tora fan thinks on his review of Tora Tora Tora when he criticizes Midway.

BTW, can someone tell me if Capt. Matt Garth is a real figure? I can't get any info on that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My favorite movie, but it has some flaws.
Review: For one thing, the people who play the main characters do not look anything like the real person, except Henry Fonda and the man who played Vice Admiral Kondo. One other thing: The three Japanese carriers that were bombed before Hiryu (Kaga, Akagi, Soryu), DID NOT just continue on while blazing out of control, they all separated and went down that night or early the next morning! And finally: The Yamato in this movie looks nothing like the real thing, (nor do the Japanese and American carriers, for that matter), the bombing of the Mogami and the Mikuma on 7 June was omitted, and the Hiryu was bombed on the morning of 6 June in the movie, instead of 4 June as in the actual World War II battle. Other than that, I agree with the other reviewer; five stars and World War II action at its best. Now, if only they made a movie about the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf...


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