Rated: 12A
Cast: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson and Luke Evans
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Written by Wes Tooke
Length: 138 mins

Director Roland Emmerich brings us a lengthy but passionate presentation of the story of the battle of Midway in the 2019 movie simply named ‘Midway’. Throughout the film we explore the events leading up to the battle of Midway in WWII and get to know some of the heroes along the way. With a strong cast we not only follow the historical timeline but get to know some of the characters, based on real people, who made such an impact.

I think where this film excels is in it’s determination to allow its audience into the lives of several characters and pinpoint the enormity and truth of victories and losses in battle. If you struggle to pay attention during war films then you might find this one difficult as it is long and there are a lot of characters. It’s easy to miss names or who is talking about who but, if you can keep with it you get to witness a presentation of history that I found to be powerful and thought provoking.

I’ve already mentioned the length of this film – at 2 hours 18 minutes it isn’t the longest film of 2019 but I did find myself aware of the time passing. I love that this film bounces between several people doing their jobs for a united goal but, naturally, that means creating a bit of a story around each individual so the audience can relate to the characters which adds to the length of the film before you even get to the main ark of the story. I didn’t think everything included was necessary, for example the character of Roy Pierce could have been cut and it wouldn’t have affected the film as a whole. As well as this I felt some of the Pearl Harbour scenes could have been cut down – I appreciate that setting the scene and building the emotion is important, but most of the audiences will have a basic knowledge of what happened and I’m sure that they could have found a shorter method to serve this purpose.

One thing that admire about this movie is how it shows both sides of the story. I was quite moved during a couple of scenes that I felt were very effective but subtle, seeing how the Japanese officers spoke to each other and to the young pilots and just how similar the conversations and motivational speeches were to those of our ‘heroes’. I found it helped humanise the ‘enemy’ and for me, assisted in presenting the war and a glimpse of it’s horrors without instilling hate towards a race.

I’ve rated this film 7/10 based mostly upon my general enjoyment of the storytelling. The visual effects didn’t blow my mind, the story was based upon truth and the script was good but the performances were great – but the standout was undoubtably Ed Skrein who brilliantly played the heroic (but not perfect) Dick Best. I would recommend this film for the historical truth and to honour the brave individuals who made an impact in the real events.