Garbage - Style over substance

Rating: 3/10 (29 November 2019)

I'm somewhat confused by all the high scored reviews, we seem to have watched different films.
In my eyes this is a classic example of attempted style over substance where a huge amount of money has been thrown as what is essentially a very bad made-for-tv script and then directed by a hack in full Michael Bay mode.
The pacing is deeply uneven, the accents are often bordering on atrocious (stop forcing actors that can't do a convincing accent foreign to them to do one for god's sake), the acting is all nover the place (dennis quaid being a strange example of a really good actor horribly directed as a walking gruff cliche) with the best performances being woody harrellson (in a role that didn't push him in any way) and the japanese admiral/generals (although they are largely presented as pastiche save for a couple of moments). The somewhat dodgy CGI is heavily over-relied on, especially in the opening battle making for a jarring and visually chaotic experience where it didn't blend particularly well (it does work fairly well in the main battle sequence, which is the best part of the film by a very very long way).
Character development is thin on the ground, what little there is mostly being crammed into about 15minutes before the main battle. Although I mention development, you can't really develop two-dimensional cardboard cutouts that are essentially walking talking cliches (something which plagues almost every aspect of the film: seeming obliviousness to agonising cliche). The dialogue meanwhile is simply abominable except for one or two short exchanges which raise expectations only to have them quickly dashed again in the next scene.
The director of photography and the person doing the scoring appear to have tried their very best to put the oscar-worthy epic films stamp on it, but mostly serve to over-egg the pot and further highlight the rest of the film's short-comings. It's almost like someone planned the aerial scenes in the battle of midway then frantically tried to cobble a film together around them. There are a few small nods to the period and atmosphere of the time, but just that, small ineffectual nods that simply place the setting in that peculiar world of soft-focus, sepia-tinted, whisky-soaked nostalgia that never existed but is used as a crutch in so many films.
This film has very clear aspirations above its station but merits none of them and conveys little of the surrounding history. A tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot and signifying nothing (with a cool dogfight and a couple of noble deaths.)
(I will give them a tip of the hat where due for deigning to recognise the japanese as actual human beings as opposed to just inscrutable stoic enemies in the ending dedication.)