Dire Midway a tin-eared throwback to war movies of old
Midway (M, 138 mins) Directed by Roland Emmerich Reviewed by James Croot ★★
If 2001’s Pearl Harbor was a Titanic-inspired take on America’s day of infamy and its aftermath, then this actiondrama’s template is clearly 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. Perhaps that’s no surprise, given that Midway shares the same director – Roland Emmerich.
But disappointingly, after an intriguing opening involving Patrick Wilson as naval attache Edwin Layton warning against pushing the Japanese into a corner, the latter quickly become the film’s bad guys and we’re introduced to a succession of similar-looking, Hawaii-based, clean-cut, godfearing fly boys, before they’re all blown across the water by the admittedly impressively realised attack of December 7, 1941.
Wounds are then licked, the dead mourned, tactics lamented, superiors wheeled out and a radical attempt to stand their ground and repel the opposition is concocted.
The quite impressive cast, that includes Woody Harrelson, Ed Skrein, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas and Dennis Quaid, is then seen emoting and delivering big speeches, while Mandy Moore and others wait for updates on ‘‘their boys’’.
Say one thing for Emmerich though, he certainly doesn’t stint on spectacle. The dive-bombing sequences are truly thrilling, and the battle scenes grip and occasionally enthral. However, as soon as things come back down to Earth, the ploddingly predictable seams of TV’s Colony creator Wes Tooke’s leaden script start to show.
In a way, this Midway is the mirror image of the 1976 movie of the same name that starred Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda and James Coburn. While its battle scenes were laughably lifted stock footage from Tora! and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Jack Smight’s film was a hit in Japan because it depicted their military men as brave and resourceful.
In an era when there have been so many sensitive takes on war, this seems like a jingoistic, tineared throwback. One of America’s greatest intelligence failures and most important naval battles is presented with all the nuance of a shoot-’em-up video game.