Saw the new Midway movie. Lots of action. How realistic? You be the judge. I don't think the battle scenes are as realistic as Saving Private Ryan. That said, it's hard to show air and sea battles in context in one view.

Historically, it tries to be accurate. Too much history to fit in such a short amount of time. Covers many major events and people from before Pearl Harbor to the actual battle.

I liked the movie for what they tried to do, but I think the scope was too big.

Military times was notably unimpressed.

Blockbuster ‘Midway’ sinks faster than Japanese carriers at ... Midway

VERDICT

This film was physically upsetting and is capable of ruining anyone’s weekend.

Stay away from it and abstain from the mental strife.

Save your money for Sam Mendes’ World War I film, “1917,” which is set for a limited Christmas Day release before hitting theaters nationwide on Jan. 10, 2020.


.........
Lots of ads (adds, for the 'fire), and other misc. in the article. Too much to edit to make it into a post.

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-d...faster-than-japanese-carriers-at-midway/

Here I thought Midway had no hazmat fees this week....

Going to see it tomorrow. Military.com is full of liberal pajama boy writers.

Did they have any lesbian transgender heroes or evil racist old white guys mistreating blacks in it?

It was a great event, but hope MT is off the mark.

No. Surprisingly, they had married, patriotic, white guys.

Think how fuucked up it would have been with Yobama in charge.

Read the linked review. Well, I dunno if OrangeOkie's assessment of MT pajama-boy writers applies to the guy who wrote this review, but he is a damn good writer and the review is funny as hell. I'll be giving "Midway" a pass.

Stand Down


We are not the worlds policemen

I won't pay a nickle to see anything with PETA-Phile Woody Harrelson in it. He's anti-everything we believe here on the Fire.

Yea...but kingpin was frikin awesome!

The original midway with C. Heston was awesome. I own it and watch it all the time.

What role did C. Heston play? Was it the same one as 40 years ago?

What role did C. Heston play? Was it the same one as 40 years ago?

He dead!!!

Maybe all they could see was a glorification of 'toxic masculinity'.

Same thing to the libs...

Woody Harrelson as Nimitz?

Need an actor with Gravitas.

Pass.

I liked the movie. Here is YouTube rendition.....

Yep.

Dess: Thank you for your assessment.
I am waiting for it to come within 65 miles of my home - then I will see it.
If you have the time, I have to tell a "movie" story on myself.
I love movies and have filled my Deer tag here in Montana (11 point Whitetail) and there is NO tracking snow at all and it is 60 (sixty!) degrees right now so I am done Elk Hunting for a while.
Anyway at 4:00 PM yesterday I am driving past the local theater as I returned from the taxidermist shop and I see on the marquis a show advertised called "Playing With Fire".
I pull in and it is starring the muscle bound wrestler turned actor John Cena!
I think, cool, an action picture with fire fighters.
I park go in - paying the matinee price and start watching the movie I am unfamiliar with the plot of.
Turns out it is a "childrens movie" and is rated PG.
Not what I wanted or expected but it was cute and had four or five good laughs in it.
I would not recommend the movie for an action oriented adult film goer!
But the popcorn was great.
Thanks again for your review I appreciate it.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Just before the Japanese flew a Betty or Zero up his ass.

I learned something in this movie-don’t recall ever reading about Dick Best or seeing him in the 1976 film. He was portrayed as a true warrior.

Everyone who is interested in The Battle of Midway should read “Shattered Sword” by Jonathon Parshall and Anthony Tully.

https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889249

I love the Dauntless.

Watching it now.

I believe Heston played McCluskey

You better shape up tiger or some hot shot jap pilot is going to flame your ass.

I liked it better than the '70s version, which might have been accurate historically, but had too much nonsense with the Japanese girl the one flyer (Heston's son, in the movie) was obsessed with. Other than too much CGI, and dive bombers pulling out so close to the ships that their bombs would have blown themselves out of the sky, it wasn't too bad. Some parts of the film were pretty good, and Harrelson did a credible job as Nimitz, which surprised me a helluva lot. Dennis Quaid did a good job as Halsey, too, for what little he was in it. The guy who played Spruance left no impression whatsoever.

All in all, I thought it was pretty fair, and the historical stuff was accurate enough, considering Hollywood these days. Again, while no one really drove their airplanes that low (due to the CGI bullcrap), the rest of the movie wasn't too bad, although they gave short shrift to the Catalina crews, and didn't mention how BAD the Devastator torpedo planes were, they DID include the Marauders from Midway trying to drop torpedoes.

I saw it yesterday, and enjoyed it quite a bit.

When I first saw the Charlton Heston version, I didn't enjoy it that much. Then I went to see it with a friend who is an Annapolis graduate, and he fed me context throughout the movie. That was far more enjoyable, and I ended up liking it a lot.

I would rate the current version as a little less true to life. As mentioned, the CGI almost makes the story non-credible in a place or two. Also, you don't get the full picture of just how much of a disadvantage our pilots had vs. the Zero. Hellcats and Corsairs came along later in the war, and made a huge difference. As mentioned, the movie tries to pack too many events into the running time.

It's entertainment. It's fun. It's worth the trip.

The trailer alone was almost total CG. I'll stick with the old version.

Nolte: ‘Midway’ Stomps Stephen King,
All-Girl ‘Terminator’ at Box Office




Midway, the old-fashioned, pro-American war movie critics dismissed and the experts said no one would see, is beating the latest horror movie from far-left novelist Stephen King.
With a dismal 40 percent Rotten Tomatoes’ score, director Roland Emmerich’s Midway, the story of the epic WWII battle that changed the course of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific, was projected to crash into fourth place behind King’s Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep, along with Last Christmas and Terminator: Dark Fate.

Doctor Sleep slipped into 3,855 theaters with a solid 73 percent Rotten Tomatoes’ score and a projected opening windfall of $27 million. The woke romantic comedy Last Christmas opened in 3,448 theaters with a $15 million projection. Terminator: Dark Fate is still in 4,086 theaters, and was looking at a second-weekend haul of $13.4.

Midway only opened in 3,242 theaters with a projected debut of just $13 million.

And yet, even though it’s playing in 600 few theaters than Doctor Sleep, 200 fewer than Last Christmas (which looks excruciatingly awful), and 800 fewer than the all-girl Terminator, Midway is now projected to beat them all and land in the weekend’s top spot.

The far-left Deadline reports that Midway over-performed bigtime with a $19.2 million opening, while King’s Doctor Sleep nosedived with an abysmal $17.2 million.

Last Christmas and the all-girl Terminator also came slightly in below projections.

With the exception of chapters one and two of It, which were both smashes, King’s box office record has been pretty awful over the last few years. Even with stars Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack, Cell (2016) died an ignoble death on 15 screens and a $1.3 million total global haul The big-budget Dark Tower (2017) drowned in red ink with its abysmal $113 million global haul. This year’s Pet Sematary grossed just $55 million domestic, which is less than the $57.5 million the original grossed thirty years ago — and that is dollar-to-dollar ignoring inflation.

And now Doctor Sleep, which cost $60 million produce and at least as much to promote, is dead in the water with an abysmal opening, especially when you are talking about a sequel to one of the most cherished horror movies of all time.

For more than 20 years, King could almost do no wrong at the movies: Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), Creepshow (1982), Cujo (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), Christine (1983), Children of the Corn (1984), Silver Bullet (1985), Stand By Me (1986), The Running Man (1987), Pet Sematary (1989), Misery (1990), Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999). I’ll even defend Needful Things (1993), Creepshow 2 (1987), and Maximum Overdrive (1986).

Over these last 20 years, though, there have been a whole lot more misses than hits.

As far as Terminator: Dark Fate, that sucker is doornail dead with a 59 percent crash over its opening weekend, which is especially tragic when your opening weekend stinks. Weekend two only added $12 million to Dark Fate’s tally, which means that after ten days it sits at a catastrophic $49 million domestic.

Dark Fate will need to hit somewhere between $500 and $600 million just to break even, and by Monday it will probably not be over $160 million worldwide.

They brought back James Cameron. They brought back Linda Hamilton. America’s butt-kissing critics got in line to award it mostly positive reviews. But if it walks like a social justice lecture, you know it’s going to talk like a social justice lecture, and Dark Fate is now doomed to be one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history.

You know, it’s weird how woke movies like Dark Fate, Men in Black: International, Stuber, Late Night, Booksmart, Long Shot, The Hustle, the all-girl Ghostbusters, Vice, Wrinkle in Time, and the like, continue to flame out and flop, while titles that appeal to Middle America — Midway, Angel Has Fallen, Unplanned, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Mule, John Wick, Overcomer, etc., continue to surprise the so-called experts.

And by “weird,” I mean not weird at all.

Yeah! They should have used real airplanes, bombs and ships! WTF were they thinking?

I saw it this afternoon. It was okay--I'd give it a B-. The movie was free of nudity, sex, and political correctness. There was some profanity, but it wasn't pervasive.

My main criticism is that the movie tried to cover too much. It portrays the attack on Pearl Harbor, a battle in the Marshall Islands, the Doolittle raid, a smidge of the battle of the Coral Sea, and finally, the battle of Midway. There just wasn't enough time to comprehensively what was happening and why. The film felt more like a highlight reel of the entire war in the Pacific up to that point rather than a feature film on Midway.

There was no time to cover, or even mention the air search for the Japanese ships or the diversionary strike in Alaska. The U.S. forces had trouble coordinating their attacks but there was no mention of that, and thus, there was no explanation as to why torpedo planes attacked without fighter cover. There was virtually no coverage of the two strikes against the Yorktown or her eventual sinking. The actual history of this battle is fascinating, and they could have done so much more with it. I was frustrated that they didn't.

The historical characters were well-depicted and portrayed respectfully. I am no Woody Harrelson fan, but he did a nice job as Nimitz. I liked Fonda better as Nimitz, but I have no complaints about Harrelson's performance.

Like I said before, I give it a B-. I would give it a solid, straight-up B, but the closing credits dedicated the film to both the American and Japanese service members who fought there. I didn't care for that.

Yep, and there was never McCluskey historically. He was a made up character, so we could have the son/Japanese girl drama added.

There indeed was a Wade McClusky, who went on to become a Rear Admiral.

The individual you speak of was a Captain Matt Garth, who was a fictional character.

I agree they tried to cover too much, and the CGI was so bad in the Pearl Harbor that them Zeros (??) blowing up bits of battleships by strafing them flew like a cross between Ti fighters from Star Wars and pterodactyls from Jurassic Park.

But, being a high school teacher I can tell you that if they didn’t give a synopsis of the war up until Midway most of the audience wouldn’t have a clue about the context of the battle.

Pretty sure a Chicom outfit help fund this movie, which is maybe why they included the Doolittle Raid so they could work some Chinese into the plot. Maybe too why they don’t flinch from including Japanese savagery, both towards captured Americans and Chinese civilians, staying at the end that the Japanese killed 250,000 Chinese in reprisals for helping the Doolittle crews.

It was pretty interesting to get to meet the eccentrics decifering Japanese radio intercepts, pointing out prior intelligence failures and the gamble that was Midway. The movie takes pains to point out too how good the Japanese Navy was.

The SBD’s were the stars of the movie, ya get a sense of just how small they were and what the pilots were up against. And hey, if the Japanese couldn’t actually throw that much spectacular anti-aircraft ordinance into the air it might have seemed that way to the guys diving in the planes.

No Gays, no token minorities, heterosexual married people with kids actually devoted to each other. And Woody Harrelson and especially Dennis Quaid give us maybe the best ever movies depictions of Chester Nimitz and Bull Halsey. A smart move to give teen idol Nick Jonas a role too. I was happy to see that Mandy Moor is aging well too.

An unabashed tribute to American heroism, and a serious effort to portray an actual historical event, worth supporting with your dollars for that fact alone.

YES!!! That's the one. I got them confused.

It was a damn good movie.

My Father was a Veteran of the Pacific War and just entering the service when the Midway battle occurred. When it premiered, he took me to the theater to see it.

I didn’t know that John Ford was wounded at Midway while filming for the Navy

saw it last night. wife and i both enjoyed it. im not a big fan of all the CGI, but all and all we enjoyed it and i enjoyed the history aspect of it.

CGI?

Yep, read it after Jorge recommended it here, a great book. One thing the movie shows is how small and cramped those flattops were.

computer-generated imagery (special visual effects created using computer software).
"fewer real stunts are performed because filmmakers can just use CGI"

Work ok for some stuff, but when used too much, it looks cartoonish and contrived. Especially to those who can differentiate between authenticity and fake.

Thanks Dess.

As mentioned earlier here, THIS is the next movie to watch for 😎 Be cool to see Enfield No. 1’s in action, and for me I look forward to immersing myself in the possible multitude of Working Class English accents of my youth. Dunno how many there were exactly but I do recall that in England of the 1960’s people from just ten miles down the road talked differently than we did, and you could hear it.



I also recall the ancient (to me) and impoverished WWI Pensioners selling those little red fake poppies on Remembrance Day.

Best I can tell from previews Woody is playing Chester Nimitz? That in itself is giving me pause.

I saw it Sunday night

I thought it was a very enjoyable movie. Good popcorn movie. Those dive bombing scenes were awesome

I enjoyed it as did my wife for the story-telling, especially with how the Japanese leadership and their thinking and tactics were set in parallel with ours.

I liked it well enough. Not great, but I've seen worse.

Watched it Sunday night in a 4DX theater. The seats rock and roll and bump up and down, with wind, water spray and the smell of burnt gunpowder. We both enjoyed it, The little wifey commented that this is the kind of movie the millennials need to see, so they can understand from whence comes their freedom and liberty.

Marvel comics version of WWII in the Pacific. Fairly accurate historically but tried to cover waaaayy too much in a couple of hours. The special effects are interesting. Best part of the movie was a dad brought his two tween aged sons to see the movie. They sat beside us and as we were leaving I told the younger boy that he had a pretty cool father for bringing him to a movie like this. He looked at me and said "Yeah, he is cool!".

Richard Halsey Best - Wikipedia
Search domain en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Halsey_Besthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Halsey_Best
Richard Halsey Best (March 24, 1910 - October 28, 2001) was a dive bomber pilot and squadron commander in the United States Navy during World War II. Stationed on the USS Enterprise, Best led his dive bomber squadron at the 1942 Battle of Midway, sinking one Japanese aircraft carrier and potentially damaging another, before being invalided out with tuberculosis that same year.