From: mleeper@optonline.net   
      
   MIDWAY (2019) (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)   
      
   This is a 2019 re-creation of the Battle of Midway, currently best   
   known from the 1976 film MIDWAY.  The special effects seem a grade   
   below those of Michael Bey's 2001 PEARL HARBOR, and the script   
   drops a lot of names to tie this film to that one.  In fact, the   
   first half of this film is about the attack on Pearl Harbor and the   
   subsequent Doolittle raid on Tokyo.  It is an hour into the film   
   before Midway is more than just a passing name.   
      
   But the name-dropping is also because, unlike the earlier 1976 film   
   MIDWAY, or PEARL HARBOR (which also covers the Doolittle Raid),   
   this film does not add fictional characters or a fictional love   
   interest.  (Another film set in this period that sticks to real   
   people is TORA! TORA! TORA!)  So all the names are real and hence   
   sound a little like name-dropping.  Even when names aren't   
   mentioned, there are glimpses of the best-known people from Pearl   
   Harbor.  For example, at the awards ceremony shown about an hour in   
   (and which took place shortly before the Battle of Midway on the   
   deck of an aircraft carrier), we see from behind an African-   
   American seaman in the row of recipients; that would be Doris   
   Miller, who was awarded the Navy Cross on May 27 on the deck of the   
   USS Enterprise.   
      
   (Many films have featured highly fictionalized accounts of the   
   attack on Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raid, or both.  This may be   
   the first reasonably accurate depiction of those events.)   
      
   One problem in war movies is balancing the chaos of battle with the   
   need to let the audience follow what is going on.  MIDWAY leans   
   more toward the former than the latter.   
      
   Another problem with the film is that it may be too accurate.  We   
   are introduced to a lot of actors with unfamiliar faces who are   
   much less familiar than those in, say, the earlier MIDWAY, making   
   it harder to keep the characters straight.  This makes it harder to   
   follow the events.   
      
   The script also takes the story from 1937 to 1942, chops it in   
   pieces, and although it shows them in chronological order, the   
   script jumps a few months or years with only minimal warning.   
      
   Mark summarizes: "I never actually followed a historic battle for   
   accuracy.  This one I did.  The Battle of Midway is one of the most   
      
   amazing stories in military history and I was very pleased to see a   
   new film featuring that story."   
      
   This is the rare war film that gets more points for historic   
   accuracy than for entertainment.   
      
   Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4)   
      
   --   
   Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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