Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 4.0
Entreating Heroics and Tactics despite Flawed Subplot
Trying to fit political correctness into this film was not necessary. In fact it hurt the film. Edward Albert Jr. and Charlton Heston's characters are pure fiction compared to most of the other actors' characters in the cast. They are used to address the issue of Japanese-Americans detained and relocated after Pearl Harbor. This issue was better addressed, and rightly so, by director Robert Pirosh in his WWII film GO FOR BROKE. The issue of the loyalty of Japanese-Americans was at the heart of that film. The focus of MIDWAY should have been solely about the turning point of the war in the Pacific. There is really not much new film footage in this movie. It is effectively constructed with lots and lots of stock footage and it manages to tell the story of the battle quite well. MIDWAY remains entertaining while you try to pick out all the actors that show up in this film such as Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Ed Nelson, James Shigeta, Monte Markham, Christopher George, Glenn Corbett, Tom Selleck, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada, and many others. One of the best elements of this film is the score and thematic march composed by John Williams.