Product: Midway (Collector's Edition) (1976)
Rating: 3.0
Good as a History Lesson
Midway tries to achieve the spectacularity of Tora Tora Tora, but it falls short. That said, it is generally well acted and historically fascinating as it was the battle that turned the tide against the onslaught of the Japanese Imperial Navy.Some of the attack scenes appear to have been copied right out of Tora Tora Tora, and I swear that in one scene where a returning US Navy fighter plane crash lands on the carrier deck, was in fact footage of a US Navy Panther jet (Circa 1950), which did not yet exist.Heston plays the impatient father of a young flight officer who is in love with a Japanese-American girl in Hawaii who had been arrested with her family and placed under guard in an Army internment camp. Heston, a senior Naval Officer isn't happy about his son's romance, but pays the young girl a visit to deliver her a message from his son. The scene is awkward, and it doesn't seem to belong in the movie.The only reason I think this whole subject was even included in the movie was to draw attention to the internment of the Japanese. It just doesn't play well mixed in with the Battle of Midway. (It would really make a great story on its own, however).I think this movie is worth it, even with the few warts.