If you haven't watched it yet...

Rating: 4/10 (4 March 2020)

I hope to save two plus hours of your life with this review. It's pretty simple, if attention to detail, engaging dialogue and dynamic acting are your thing then don't watch this movie. I will give it credit for being relatively spot on with the historical facts, with a couple glaring weaknesses. If ever one goes to the Marshall Islands be sure note the absence of the large mountains as shown in the film...could they not have CGI'd planes flying over an atoll???
Every time Ed Skrein was on screen it was like watching paint dry, only more painful. The casting of he and Luke Kleintank in lead roles was whatever the opposite of inspired is. Woody Harrelson and Dennis Quade did a decent job of earning their paycheck and there were good showings from Luke Evans, Patrick Wilson and Aaron Eckhart (why not just end the movie after his raid?). But that couldn't rescue the wooden dialogue, cliche pep talks and utter lack of character development.
I was so excited to watch this because of the importance of the battle of Midway, but by the end of the movie I was hoping that somehow Skrein's plane wouldn't make it back so we wouldn't have to hear him talk anymore. Was he trying to do an impression of Bill Guarnere from Band of Brothers? If so, epic failure. I was cheering for the aa gunners on the Japanese ships, and I had two close relatives survive the attack on Pearl Harbor! This is what you did to me, Wes Tooke, Roland Emmerich and anyone else who brought this Pearl Harbor (2001) level film to life.