A potently great movie bogged down by terrible editing, a misguided narrative, and a handful of other problems.

Rating: 4/10 (27 November 2019)

I would like to start by acknowledging that many of the reviews here are written by veterans or their family members. As a son of a US army soldier, I respect their views but respectfully disagree. My review is not about the accuracy of navy procedure or even the accuracy of the movie in general. If you want that, there are many others who have reviewed the movie on this basis. I am here to review this as what it is, a movie.
Midway is a misguided mess. A movie that is supposedly a retelling of the decisive naval battle does not open strong. In fact, in the first scene, we are introduced to the main problem of this movie. Midways' editing is atrocious. One moment we are in 1930's japan, then the attack on pearl harbor. The way scenes are edited together is messy. A scene can come and go without any real relation to the scene preceding and proceeding. Because of this, the story comes off as choppy and we get long amounts of time where characters just disappear from the story only to pop up randomly later. This isn't helped by the fact that we are never introduced to characters outside of what I guess is our main protagonist, Lieutenant Richard "Dick" Best. I say this because, as I said before, there are large portions of screen-time he just disappears. Along with this, characters do not progress through the film. They pop up randomly having achieved something off screen since the time we last saw them. Best is a great example of this. Outside of his initial introduction, we see him do very little until the real battle.
This is one of Midways greatest faults, the "characters" are poorly developed and get no screen-time to develop themselves out of what we as the viewer are introduced to them as. Best is introduced as a cocky smart-mouth who's one hell of a pilot. That is what he is. Nothing is done to develop him out of this and we learn nothing about him. This would have been fine in a 70's action movie. However, this is based on a real person. Someone who actually fought in the battle of Midway. Almost everyone suffers from this, a great example is Joseph Rochefort, the Chief Cryptanalyst during this time. He is given no introduction. Thrown onscreen and portrayed as an eccentric who is good at his job. He is given one scene and then disappears forever. All "characters" in this movie are nothing more than means to an end.
This is all a fault of the overall narrative. Midways' storytelling is awful. "Characters" are thrown into the plot to only disappear and never be mentioned again. No regard is given to time as we fly down the timeline, sticking scenes that are sometimes months apart next to each other with no mention. Events like the bombing of Tokyo are thrown in with no concern, given a few scenes, then forgotten about and wrapped up in an ending memorial. What makes this worse is that we never stick with one story for more than a few scenes. The plot jumps around after every scene. Sometimes forgetting stories for long periods only to jump back with no real continuity. This is compounded by the fact that the dialogue sucks. It's cheesy, dated, and sometimes downright cringe-inducing.
The real tragedy of Midway, however, is that underneath all of this there is a beautiful movie. The cinematography in this movie was fantastic. The attack on pearl harbor and the battle itself is magnificent. When we actually follow the planes into battle I found myself shocked by how well done the shots were.
This is why I'm more disappointed with Midway than anything. Because once we get past the poor editing and story. We get what I consider a good battle scene. Once the plot actually slows down and follows the battle, we get a good movie. We still have the Cheesy dialog and overuse of poorly done CGI. However, the movie actually picks itself up and delivers us a great battle. We have callbacks to the original attack on pearl harbor and well-executed character moments. In fact, we have an amazingly-done scene of Best and his co-pilot as they prepare to go back out to find the final aircraft carrier. Along with this, the scene of the Japanese commander going down with his ship is a shining moment that shows the movie can have well-written scenes.
This is the true tragedy of Midway. Underneath all the problems, we have brilliant cinematography and a potentially great third act. Because of everything else though, this is nothing more than what could have been. A movie that is dedicated to those who died in these battles and risked their lives in it can do better, and should. Like I said before. I'm not here to review this movie for its accuracy. I'm not here to pretend I understand what these men sacrificed. If you want that, there are other reviews that will tell you that. I'm only here to tell you of what could have been a good movie, and what we got. Would I recommend this? No.