Midway

Name: Midway
Genre: Action, Drama, History, War
Released: June 18, 1976
Duration: 132 min
Rating: 48
Cast: Charlton Heston, Cliff Robertson, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Henry Fonda

1976

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 6 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 5 Ratings

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5.6

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Movie Details & Credits

Universal Pictures | Release Date: June 18, 1976 | PG

Starring: Charlton Heston, Cliff Robertson, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Toshirô Mifune

Summary: A dramatization of the battle that was widely heralded as a turning point of the Pacific Theatre of World War II.

Director: Jack Smight

Genre(s): Action, Drama, History, War

Rating: PG

Runtime: 132 min

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Critic Reviews

Roger Ebert

War movies used to have dash and color and a certain corny sentimentality; Midway hardly even makes us care. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

The June 1942 sea-air battle off Midway Island was a turning point in World War II. However, the melee of combat was the usual hysterical jumble of noise, explosion and violent death. Midway tries to combine both aspects but succumbs to the confusion. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

Despite a crowded cast of famous actors, this WW II adventure falls flat because of its claustrophobic sets, cliche dialog, and hackneyed story. Read full review

Vincent Canby

Midway solemnly cross-cuts between the war councils, chart rooms and communications offices on the American side and those on the Japanese side, with characters, who often have to be identified by subtitles, laboriously trying to give us all of the exposition necessary to make the battle coherent. There's no way to act such roles. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Midway never quite decides whether war is hell, good clean fun, or merely another existential dilemma. This drab extravaganza toys with so many conflicting attitudes that it winds up reducing the pivotal World War II battle in the Pacific to utter nonsense. [28 June 1976, p.78]

Staff (Not Credited)

Noisy, incomprehensible and lumberingly irrelevant, complete with shell-schlock Sensurround. Read full review

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User Reviews

FilipeNeto

Apr 23, 2020

This film addresses one of the most important aircraft battles of the Pacific War, which was the continuation of World War II, after German surrender, but only in the Pacific theater, between the USA and Japan.

This film is, to say the least, an uneven effort. It is part of a series of warThis film addresses one of the most important aircraft battles of the Pacific War, which was the continuation of World War II, after German surrender, but only in the Pacific theater, between the USA and Japan.

This film is, to say the least, an uneven effort. It is part of a series of war epics that populated the cinemas during the 60s and 70s. However, contrary to what was usual in these films, the script was not limited to being a very expensive documentary: here we really have a story , quite well built characters and an effort to show more than just the war. Perhaps this is the result of a change in public attitudes towards war (this film was released after the emergence of the hippie movement and protests for peace and against the Vietnam War)... but the fact is that the film won with that, and does not leave that flavour of documentary that I felt in films like "The Longest Day" and "A Bridge Too Far". For example, I really liked the sub-plot involving the romance of an American naval pilot by a young American-Japanese woman, who was detained because of her origins (as many American-Japanese citizens were at that time). I thought it was a undeveloped sub-plot and could have gone further, but it was a positive addition. However, there are problems: the film drags on, it takes time to develop like an old car. It is a two-hour film that could have been easily shortened by half an hour in an editing room, to make it more palatable.

Another problem is the number of movie stars that appear just for appearing, without actually being put to use. Not to mention that some of the actors seem too old for their roles. But that does not mean that they did a bad job! All or almost all were very well, but, let's face it, it was easy for them and they were all safe bets! From the cast we can mention Charlton Heston (the days of "Ben-Hur" and "Ten Commandments" are long gone, but he remains in great shape), Pat Morita (who will consecrate himself as Miyagi in "Karate Kid", years later), Toshirô Mifune , Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Robert Wagner, Glenn Ford. I did not like Robert Mitchum very much, he appears so little and in a role so static that it almost becomes expendable; in turn, Hal Holbrook is too old and too hairy for the character, not to mention the strange costume.

But where the film really got lost was in the technical part. To begin with, the film was unable to go looking for war material and props consistent with what existed in 1945. At least they went to shoot on the USS Lexingon, which today is a museum. I realized that the idea of putting real scenes of the real battle in the middle of the film was, allegedly, a tribute to the military who fought in it, but that just sounds like a super lame excuse to save a few million dollars on the most technically challenging and complex part of the film : the recreation of combat scenes. If the producers and director Jack Smight were unwilling to do so, they shouldn't have made a war movie! Simple! Those scenes are worthy of merit, they are historical documents, but they were not made for cinema! They have a lot of grain and scratches, and they were horrible in the middle of the film! Not to mention that, for all those who have had enough of History Channel documentaries about the World War II, they are terribly familiar. And another problem was the mixing of these images: does a blue airplane suddenly become green? Does a torpedo plane become a fighter in a matter of seconds? Even a tailor would be able to do a better job of copying and pasting than that post-production room! Where did they have their heads?… Expand

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zxcvbnm321

Jun 23, 2020

This film was made soon after the film Tora Tora Tora showing the battle of Pearl Harbour. In every way this is a greatly inferior film, from oversimplification of material making the Japanese speak English and distortion of historical events to creating melodrama for the characters fromThis film was made soon after the film Tora Tora Tora showing the battle of Pearl Harbour. In every way this is a greatly inferior film, from oversimplification of material making the Japanese speak English and distortion of historical events to creating melodrama for the characters from than focus on the historical events this is a greatly inferior film in every way. The musical score is forgettable and some of the acting is cringe inducing though the story doesn't help with that. Thankfully there is a much better Midway now made in 2019.… Expand

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