Arcade-like that falls short

Rating: 2/10 (29 March 2020)

All of the 4K Ultra HD CGI Master Blaster technology can't save this poorly written, incoherently directed travesty. No one expected a documentary, but that is a far cry from how the storyline runs roughshod over important historical elements that defined this remarkable episode.
Woody Harrelson does his best, but never sells Chester Nimitz - but it's not his fault, he was miscast. I am a fan of Harrelson, professionally and personally, but he could not rescue this role. He would have been far better placed as a pilot or intelligence lead.
Still, the writing is shallow and disconnected with the dialogue splattered with modern-day vernacular and post-operation lessons as if they were known in the moment.
It is good that there is an interest by young filmmakers of the battle itself, but one gets the feeling that the technical consulting for the script was only Google-deep. Instead, this movie comes off as a computer graphics and money-making playground using this pivotal point of American history as nothing more than a superficial backdrop.
The movie opens with a promising dramatic pre-war scene that sparks intrigue, if not promise, but then steeply falls off into an abyss of disappointment. Images of tragedy are brought to visualization, but are so sharply fragmented that they interrupt, rather than add, to the flow of the movie.
It is a shame, this could have been so much more, but "Midway" results in little more than a video-game quality story that should be played out on X-Box instead of Blu-Ray.