{"id":45273,"date":"2019-11-11T13:49:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T18:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45273"},"modified":"2019-11-11T13:49:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T18:49:47","slug":"midway-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/11\/midway-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Midway \u2013 Movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Veterans\nDay is not a holiday one typically associates with new movies, either in terms\nof box office or subject matter. With box office, there\u2019s a clamor over which\nmovie gets to dominate Christmas weekend, Thanksgiving, Easter, even the\nsimilarly military-themed Memorial Day, but ironically there\u2019s not much of a\nbattle over Veterans Day. In terms of subject matter, every year is going to\nbring a few war movies, but barely any of them choose to capitalize on Veterans\nDay, usually opting to open as a summer blockbuster or December awards-season\ndarling. This year is different, however. This year, Veterans Day weekend was\nwon by \u201cMidway,\u201d a war movie whose business strategy included conquering\nVeterans Day and not much beyond that. It beat out the too-late-for-Halloween\n\u201cShining\u201d sequel \u201cDoctor Sleep\u201d by an estimated $3 million and the\ntoo-early-for-Christmas \u201cLast Christmas\u201d by an estimated $6 million. I guess\nthe lesson is to open at the appropriate holiday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Speaking\nof patriotic holidays, \u201cMidway\u201d is directed by Roland Emmerich, helmer of\nall-time holiday cash-grab champion \u201cIndependence Day.\u201d He\u2019s known for movies\nlike that, \u201cStargate,\u201d the 1998 \u201cGodzilla,\u201d and other critically-derided, special\neffects-driven blockbusters. It reminds me of another filmmaker with a similar\nreputation. In 2001, Michael Bay was known for overblown popcorn flicks like\n\u201cThe Rock\u201d and \u201cArmageddon.\u201d He turned his attention to WWII and put out \u201cPearl\nHarbor,\u201d which\u2026 immediately earned a reputation as one of his worst overblown\npopcorn flicks. Emmerich is taking some very familiar steps here, and yeah, the\nresults are pretty much the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\nfilm follows real-life WWII officers and personalities from the attack on Pearl\nHarbor to the Battle of Midway, a naval battle that gave the United States a\ncrucial victory. Hotshot pilot Dick Best (Ed Skrein) becomes commander of his\nsquadron and loses his trademark confidence when charging others with risking\ntheir lives the way he\u2019s willing to risk his own. Intelligence Officer Edwin T.\nLayton (Patrick Wilson) was relatively sure that the Japanese were going to\nattack Pearl Harbor, and lives were lost because of his ineffectiveness. He and\nAdmiral Chester W. Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) are determined to not let that\nhappen at Midway\u2026 unless he\u2019s wrong this time. Other key pilots include\ncharacters played by Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, and surprise movie MVP Nick Jonas.\nWe get a glimpse of the Japanese officers as well, as they let their pride in\ntheir superior resources lead them into a fatal trap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As\nwith many war movies, after the initial action sequence (Pearl Harbor), much of\nthe first half is spent getting to know the characters and much of the second\nhalf is spent in battle. The first half doesn\u2019t work because the focus bounces\naround too much and the characters are mostly unlikeable anyway. Skrein\nespecially is grating to watch. Didn\u2019t Hollywood learn after he struck out as\n\u201cThe Transporter\u201d that this guy shouldn\u2019t be a leading man? As for the second\nhalf, it\u2019s just a lot of incoherent flying, shooting, and exploding, complete\nwith not-quite-convincing CGI fireballs. I\u2019ll take the movie\u2019s word for it that\nthe Americans win (sorry if that\u2019s a spoiler), but I wouldn\u2019t have been able to\ntell from the action as opposed to the epilogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\nheroes of Midway, among many other veterans, deserve to be celebrated, but with\na better movie than this. Celebrate Veterans Day by seeking out a veteran and\nshaking their hand, not by seeing this well-intentioned but uninteresting misfire.\nAnd sorry, but I have to make the obvious joke that \u201cMidway\u201d is a fitting title\nfor such a mediocre movie, if it even achieves that.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMidway\u201d is rated PG-13 for\nsequences of war violence and related images, language and smoking. Its running\ntime is 138 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             Veterans Day is not a holiday one typically associates with new movies, either in terms of box office or subject matter. With box office, there\u2019s a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}