Midway, directed by Roland Emmerich, is a kinda-remake of a not-very-good movie from 1976 about the impressive World War II battle. For as consequential as the Battle of Midway was, let us hope there will one day be a feature film to properly match the subject matter. The first Midway, directed by Jack Smight, starred some of the biggest–and oldest–stars at the time: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, and Robert Mitchum, to name a few. This new one is a little lighter on the star power. There’s Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, and a wig-heavy Woody Harrelson to be sure, but the majority of screen time is devoted to a younger set of talent.
Ed Skrein leads the ensemble, playing a cocksure soldier named Dick Best. It is a character name that, was it not based on a real-life hero, would be a bit too much. But then, it does fit here.
Ed Skrein leads the ensemble, playing a cocksure soldier named Dick Best. It is a character name that, was it not based on a real-life hero, would be a bit too much. But then, it does fit here.
- 11/9/2019
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
While the studios generally key lots of releases (mainly horror flicks and thrillers) for the Halloween holiday, the next major one, Veterans’ Day, rarely gets a true-life military battle docudrama. But that’s just what’s “heading ashore” at the multiplex this three day weekend. Following on the heels of 2017’s acclaimed box office hit, Dunkirk, this new film chronicles an epic World War II battle, this time in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic (and much of Europe). And there’s no “jumping around the timeline” though the new film does begin several years prior. Oh, it should be noted that Hollywood has been there before, way back in 1976 as a showcase for the glorious cinema experience of Sensurround (bet it blew out some of those special speakers). And who’s directed this new take but a man who has orchestrated two different attacks on this planet by invaders from another galaxy.
- 11/7/2019
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
If Midway really was the hot shit it thinks it is, we’d have something to talk about. But this spare-no-expense production about the most vital naval battle of WWII merely plasters the latest in digital effects over the same war-time movie tropes that Hollywood has been pedaling for decades. Director Roland Emmerich scored a box-office bonanza by showing the United States kicking alien ass in Independence Day. So why shouldn’t he take on a real battle with real heroes and a real enemy and show how the country...
- 11/7/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
World War II epics used to be a dime a dozen. Reliving the United States’ finest hours on the battlefield, filmmakers flocked to the conflict in order to tell tales of heroism. More recently, movies have largely eschewed this topic, unless a director had a more daring take to contribute. Ever since Saving Private Ryan nearly won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the field of war movies have been shrinking. Now, it’s more the territory of a Dunkirk, where Christopher Nolan could experiment while in a familiar genre. Today brings us Midway, a Roland Emmerich production that is hardly revelatory and offers plenty of action, but little else. This flick is an old fashioned war epic, as mentioned above. For those who don’t know, this is centered on the Battle of Midway, which was the decisive skirmish in the Pacific Theater during World War II. In the...
- 11/7/2019
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
The director of Independence Day crashes and burns with his wannabe World War II epic.
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There’s a scene early in Midway, the latest misfire from director Roland Emmerich, in which we watch terrified sailors aboard the USS Arizona flee from the flames as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Everything in the scene--right down to the flames themselves, which seem to hover in front of the men--is so transparently fake, so obviously computer generated, that there is absolutely no sense of the horror, shock, or gravity that a recreation of one of the darkest days in U.S. history should summon up.
Even though his movies are live-action cartoons at best, Emmerich is usually on surer ground when he’s doing alien invasions (Independence Day) or the end of the world (2012). Those kind of scenarios allow for a certain amount of unreality in the vast vistas of...
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There’s a scene early in Midway, the latest misfire from director Roland Emmerich, in which we watch terrified sailors aboard the USS Arizona flee from the flames as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Everything in the scene--right down to the flames themselves, which seem to hover in front of the men--is so transparently fake, so obviously computer generated, that there is absolutely no sense of the horror, shock, or gravity that a recreation of one of the darkest days in U.S. history should summon up.
Even though his movies are live-action cartoons at best, Emmerich is usually on surer ground when he’s doing alien invasions (Independence Day) or the end of the world (2012). Those kind of scenarios allow for a certain amount of unreality in the vast vistas of...
- 11/6/2019
- Den of Geek
Roland Emmerich is exactly the right and exactly the wrong filmmaker to make a movie about the Battle of Midway, one of the great turning points in World War II. Few filmmakers can match Emmerich’s eye for excess, and there’s no denying that he fills his film with breathtaking images of aerial action and naval warfare.
But like many of Emmerich’s movies, even the better ones, “Midway” loses sight of the humanity inside its vast vistas of devastation. It’s a giant film with a very small impact.
“Midway” opens with a few brief moments of quiet before, with an undeniably appropriate suddenness, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Emmerich coats the screen in detailed destruction and sudden heroism, but he races through the day that lives in infamy in record time, with all the pomp of Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” and slightly less of the schmaltz.
But like many of Emmerich’s movies, even the better ones, “Midway” loses sight of the humanity inside its vast vistas of devastation. It’s a giant film with a very small impact.
“Midway” opens with a few brief moments of quiet before, with an undeniably appropriate suddenness, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Emmerich coats the screen in detailed destruction and sudden heroism, but he races through the day that lives in infamy in record time, with all the pomp of Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” and slightly less of the schmaltz.
- 11/6/2019
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
The image of “dive-bombing” is an easy one to conjure in your mind’s eye. Yet I can’t say I ever thought seriously about what the experience of dive-bombing might be like — you know, for the one doing the dive-bombing — until I saw “Midway.” In Roland Emmerich’s convulsive, more-authentic-than-not historical combat movie about the battle that took place between American and Japanese Naval forces from June 4 to 7, 1942, near the Midway atoll in the Pacific theater of World War II, we see U.S. bomber pilots, like the fearless flyboy Lt. Dick Best (Ed Skrein), approach a Japanese aircraft carrier from what must be a mile up in the sky. The U.S bombers zoom down at a nearly vertical angle, like guided missiles hurtling toward the ocean, so that as they approach their target they can blow it up with pinpoint accuracy.
We see all this from the pilot’s vertiginous point-of-view,...
We see all this from the pilot’s vertiginous point-of-view,...
- 11/6/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Nick Jonas stars as ‘Bruno Gaido’ in Midway.
Midway opens in theaters on Veteran’s Day Weekend, November 8, 2019. Here’s a first look at the epic new trailer from director Roland Emmerich.
The huge cast includes Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Etsushi Toyokawa, Tadanobu Asano, Luke Kleintank, Jun Kunimura, Darren Criss, Keean Johnson, Alexander Ludwig, with Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson.
Midway centers on the Battle of Midway, a clash between the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy which marked a pivotal turning point in the Pacific Theater during WWII. The film, based on the real-life events of this heroic feat, tells the story of the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome the odds.
I can’t wait for this – the visual effects look massive and the A-list cast is impressive, like old Hollywood. The carrier...
Midway opens in theaters on Veteran’s Day Weekend, November 8, 2019. Here’s a first look at the epic new trailer from director Roland Emmerich.
The huge cast includes Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Etsushi Toyokawa, Tadanobu Asano, Luke Kleintank, Jun Kunimura, Darren Criss, Keean Johnson, Alexander Ludwig, with Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson.
Midway centers on the Battle of Midway, a clash between the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy which marked a pivotal turning point in the Pacific Theater during WWII. The film, based on the real-life events of this heroic feat, tells the story of the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome the odds.
I can’t wait for this – the visual effects look massive and the A-list cast is impressive, like old Hollywood. The carrier...
- 6/27/2019
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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