Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 3.0
Not good movie making..but a guilty pleasure....
After reading some of the reviews posted here I had to sound off a little.I saw this movie for the first time in its original thatrical release, when I was 10-11, and yes I was impressed. It was super loud it was bloody ( for its time based on what I had seen at that point) and it had a few dirty words in it, but most of all it had tremendous performances from some of the finest actors.As I got older and began to see other films ( Tora Tora Tora, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo..) with which to compare Midway I quickly realised that this was a pretty lousy attempt at telling one of the great stories of WWII.Most of the shots (not all,but most)have a T.V. feel and it comes across that the studio either spent all their money on the cast, or just didnt spend that much at all. Another reviewer said "if you look close enough" you might see a couple of shots from "Tora,Tora Tora". Come on 90% of the shots during the actual assault on Midway either came from "Tora...", or was actual war footage shot by John Ford. Which brings us to the "idea" of using combat camara footage in place of expensive sfx.Actual footage has never meshed with modern day film. This is why Ron Howard, and Tom Hanks never used any in their respective space program films.It only looks good if its being used as a news reel style footage.The first 15 min. of the movie is "30 Seconds Over Tokyo",which by the is a film I highly recommend.As far as detail goes, well there are uniform faux pas all through. And thank god Hollywood in later years would learn to cut the performers hair to the proper length, because they sure didnt in the 70s.All this brings us to the only redeeming quality in the movie...the wonderful perfomances. No one could ever play Nemitz like Henry Fonda, and I could go on, and on. Suffice to say I give this movie a guarded recommendation