So disappointed

Rating: 2/10 (7 December 2019)

I'm a bit of a WWII history junkie. I came into this with high hopes. In 10th grade, I had the pleasure of meeting Ensign George Gay and hearing his firsthand account of this battle (he is very briefly shown in this movie). Ever since, I've had an intense fascination with this particular battle, the events leading to it and the impact from it. That said, I really wanted to love this movie.
I didn't. At all. The sheer number of 10-star reviews on here makes me question their authenticity, because this movie is simply a mess. It looks like a video game. The script and screenplay are a total disaster. The actors, for the most part, are bad. Although that script gave them little with which to work. I will give the filmmakers credit for attempting to honor certain key historical elements, although the omission of others is a head-scratcher. To be fair, this movie would need to be 4 hours long to have a chance of covering all bases.
The story is poorly told. The heroic actions of our pilots, seamen and intel officers are either omitted completely (Marine pilots of squadron 221, Ensign George Gay, etc) or overdone with the worst kind of glossiness of Hollywood (Dick Best).
If you can stomach the Xbox styling of the action sequences, some of them are good, although strangely inaccurate in many ways.
I walked out of the theater not quite knowing what I'd just watched. It felt like a strange assortment of puzzle pieces, which ultimately when put together, didn't complete a picture.