Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 2.0
Dude, where's my carrier?
If someone had thrown $20 million at Ed Wood ("Plan 9 From Outer Space") and said, "Go make a movie about the battle of Midway", this is what you would have gotten. Or something pretty darn close.What's not to like about this movie, which sets out to depict the "Miracle of Midway," the carrier battle that turned the tide of the Pacific War? And was one of the first to use big-sound woofers brought in special into theaters? (Whump. Whump.) As it turns out, lots.1. The Americans. Charlton 'Moses' Heston gets to play a square-jawed naval commander and reprise his role in dozens of movies from "Omega Man" and "Planet of the Apes", being the stern hero type, able to both command, and in a pinch when the Americans are running low on pilots (hm... don't remember this in the books) actually jumping into a plane and leading the charge. Hal Holbrook was great as Mark Twain but his "Jim Dandy" intelligence officer demeanor is annoying here. Henry Fonda is in his "Asteroid" cipher mode.2. Artificially Embedded Love Interest or AELI (see "Pearl Harbor" as a reference point). Thankfully instead of Pearl Harbor's indeterminable two hours of dreck we only get about fifteen minutes or so of the duet of Heston's pouty-lipped aviator son and his Japanese-American fiancee. When Heston upbraids his son as being a complete chowderhead for considering marrying this woman, my reaction was, 'yeah, right.' She looks like a million dollars but talks like a Brooklyn Dodger, which leads me to...3. The Japanese. Where did they find these kanaka boys? It?s a bit of a cold bath to see all these healthy corn-fed Japanese youth when they open their mouths and... they sound just like the staff at the Malibu Surf Shop. Holy cow. Japanese icon Toshiro Mifune is here, but they force him to speak English and goggle at all of the surf shop staff.4. Stock war footage. Like Ed Wood, the producers of this movie love stock wartime footage, 'cause it's free. Color, switch to black and white, back to color... But Midway (except for the Wake Island bombing) produced little stock, and certainly none survive of the first attacks by flights like Waldron's torpedo squadron, which was wiped out. The planes don't match. Particularly bad are stock scenes of Japanese planes diving into American carriers. No such kamakaze attacks occurred during Midway. Midway was fought by first-string veterans of Pearl Harbor and they didn't go in for this sort of stuff.5. Special effects. The non-stock footage, apart from the pretty good large scale model work of the Japanese carriers (which is probably Toho stuff) is cheesy. It all looks like actors on a grey cardboard soundstage, and we get to see the same explosions over and over again. This movie could just as easily been done in 1945. Maybe it was.So... "Midway" is an OK kiddie film for ages 18 months and up, very little blood, no sex please, we're the Navy, and the sailors don't talk like sailors - especially Hal ("hot jiminy") Holbrook. Otherwise, go out for sushi instead. Maybe join the NRA.