Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 4.0
Good War Picture
It seems the 1976 film "Midway" has somehow been forgotten by time, but the Charlton Heston/Henry Fonda flick is one of the better war films made after "The Longest Day." The film sets out to tell this decisive battle of the early stage of the Pacific war, (though, like "Pearl Harbor" does with the Doolittle raid tends to be a little too eager to play up the signifance of this particular event making bloody battles of Okinawa, Leyte, etc seem to be insignifcant) using an all-star cast. Though Heston's character is fictitious, the other major players are all real, and so is the story they're telling. The Japanese are portrayed as real human beings, not cartoonish buffoons. It's also interesting to see the supporting players who were unknowns at the time, including Tom Selleck and Erik Estrada.The only drawback is, as another viewer mentioned, the love story involving Heston's son and a Japanese-American girl. While the "Making of" documentary on the DVD explains why they incorporated that story line, it really seems more out of place than a vital part of the story. The same can be said if you torture yourself with the love story scenes that were written in for the network television version with Susan Sullivan.That aside, if you enjoy historically accurate war films, this is among the best.