Good in its own right, but different than the 1976 Midway.

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2020)

I had read many of the bad reviews so I was expecting to be unhappy, but ended up generally enjoying the film. It is very different than the 1976 version and I'd say somewhat similar to Pearl Harbor except that it deals with actual and pretty accurate portrayal. Visually the film is very good but i would agree with some of the reviews saying it almost gives a feeling of a video game, but this is the quintescel naval and naval air forces battle and the cgi is of the ships and planes so that's ok. Probably the one thing I didn't like was that the movie's title is Midway and it spends a lot of time on Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle raid. The 1976 film has Doolittle so guess can't say that's bad. I think the problem for me is that it took away from the time that could have been spent on the intelligence that was key to the US victory. The 1976 version spends much more time on it. It's a long movie and glad that I didn't see it in the theatre.
As a former navy vet, I enjoyed the film, but I think it could have been far better so I understand why many disliked it. The time spent on Pearl Harbor could have been used to develop characters more sharing some of the what it means to have been in combat and dealing with the losses. Midway was such a pivotal battle and as it said in the opening ultimately led to the US victory as it dealt a defeat that Japan couldn't come back from. Something I did find interesting was showing the Japanese strafing our pilots in the water and the killing in China. I was surprised that this was shown because if it had been China it would have definitely been cut as China would have banned the film similar to what happened with Red Dawn.
As much as I disliked the time spent on Pearl Harbor, I wish more time would have been spent on the Arizona. And although I have a prejudice as a navy vet, I feel like the film did a good job of showing what our military does when it's in a fight whether it's WW2 or Desert Storm or the 20 years Iraq/Afgan war. I think this gives those who have not been exposed to a military life a little bit of the sorrow and victories.
I would definitely say it's worth watching.