Midway (2019)
Big budget, historically driven movies that set out to recount key events of World War II are a rarity these days. If you ignore the bombastic inanities of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001), then you have to go back to the late seventies to films such as A Bridge Too Far to find a suitable example. This is why Roland Emmerich’s Midway came as a genuine surprise. When I saw a trailer for the film last October, I was flummoxed that such a production had been made. My initial concerns were that it would focus on spectacle rather than historical fact and trivialise events of great military and historical importance. After having watched Midway, I am pleased to report that this is a surprising throwback in many ways. The film covers the events of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the subsequent Doolittle Raids on Tokyo by the US and the Battle of Midway, both succinctly and accurately. Furthermore, much of the cast play real veterans who participated in these events. Overall this is an entertaining and informative movie that feels like a relic from fifty years ago. However, its docudrama aspirations also make for somewhat generic character development.
Midway faces the dilemma that historical movies of this kind often encounter. How to balance the exposition of factual events along with a plethora of real life characters and weave both elements into a narrative arc. All too often characters have little scope for development and end up being simple archetypes. Ed Skrein as Lieutenant Richard Dick Best, typifies this. He tries to bring a sense of urgency to the proceedings as he journeys from strong headed risk taker to a seasoned officer, responsible for the men in his command. Sadly the screenplay presents this in a very formulaic way. Patrick Wilson has perhaps the greatest dramatic scope as Lieutenant Commander Edwin T. Layton, who is driven to ensure that Naval Intelligence gets things right at Midway after the disaster at Pearl Harbor. Overall, the strong cast of character actors does not get in the way of the proceedings but you do feel that you’d like to know more about them all, other than just a basic text book summary.
It is obvious that a great deal of research has gone into the visual effects in Midway. Broadly, the depiction of both Naval and air battles ring true. But at times there is an element of digital “showboating” when the onscreen action slips into spectacle, possibly at the expense of technical accuracy. Dive bombing is by its very nature a high risk undertaking but is there really a need to embellish the drama with last minute escapes from explosive fireballs and planes skimming the wave as they desperately attempt to climb? CGI also lacks the sense of mass and physical presence that filming with real ships and aircraft offers. But as such relic of World War II are in short supply, one cannot be too critical of the films production design. Midway tries to present the scale of the loss of life on both sides without getting bogged down in too much graphic violence. Broadly in works well within the confines of the PG-13 rating.
Unlike older war movies, Midway is not driven by a gung-ho imperative and does not arbitrarily paint the Japanese as two dimensional caricatures. There are brief nods to Japanese geo-political expansion at the beginning of the film and Japanese Naval tactics and motivations are shown to balance those of the US. Midway does go on to show the consequences of the Doolittle Raid and how the Chinese Nationalists faced reprisals for helping American pilots. There is no mention of Japanese-American internment. Overall, if you are interested in military dramas or are looking for an action driven war movie, then Midway can provide both. The character development and screenplay are somewhat basic but they successfully underpin the action sequences and move the story from A to B. Despite the very modern approach to direction, editing and aesthetics, there is a retro quality to the film. It is interesting to see a modern production whose primary remit is to educate, rather than just to provide disposable entertainment.
