Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 2.0
Historical Perspective
This film offers an interesting historical look at a very decisive victory in WWII from both an American and a Japanese perspective. The use of actual footage from the battle and an attempt to get into the heads of our Japanese adversaries makes this a must see for history buffs. From what I know of the battle, this film gives a fairly good account of the action and tries to explain some of the mistakes the Japanese made. Mistakes that gave our American troops a decisive victory despite being heavily outnumbered. A treat for film and TV buffs is the number of budding personalities that have appearances. The most notable are Erik Estrada ("CHiPs") and Tom Selleck ("Magnum P.I."). I have to say, however, from a cinematography perspective this film is a relic from earlier days of film making. While this film was made in the mid 1970's, it plays as if it were made 20 years earlier in the 1950's. The endless blue screen shots of flight decks and air battles are flat and uninspired, reminding me of the 1942 John Wayne film, "The Flying Tigers". The acting is rigid and unremarkable and the plane rocking effects are so flat that one wants to just skip these scenes to get to the more interesting live battle footage. Another throwback to the earlier days of film making are the one dimensional characters for whom motivation can be distilled down to a single moral value, such as love of country. On the positive side, the model work used to illustrate the destruction on the Japanese carriers is appropriate for the period and is actually quite good. In summary, this would have been a worthy entry into the world of film had it been released 20 years earlier. The battle scenes and a glimpse into the motivation of the Japanese commanders make this film worth watching for its historical value. But if you are looking for a good example of war films made during the 1970's, you would be better off with something of merit like "Tora! Tora! Tora" (1970), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), and of course "Apocalypse Now" (1979).