Movielogr

Midway (1976)

Directed by Jack Smight

War | Drama | History

Overview

This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.

Rated PG | Length 132 minutes

Actors

Charlton Heston | Henry Fonda | James Coburn | Glenn Ford | Hal Holbrook | Robert Mitchum | Toshirō Mifune | Cliff Robertson | Robert Wagner | Robert Webber | James Shigeta | Pat Morita | John Fujioka | Ed Nelson | Christopher George | Erik Estrada | Tom Selleck | Robert Ito | Christina Kokubo | Susan Sullivan | Larry Pennell | Monte Markham | Biff McGuire | Kevin Dobson | Glenn Corbett | Gregory Walcott | Edward Albert | Dale Ishimoto | Dabney Coleman | Clyde Kusatsu | Phillip R. Allen | Sab Shimono | Conrad Yama | Yuki Shimoda | Seth Sakai | Kurt Grayson | Alfie Wise | John Bennett Perry | Steve Kanaly | Kip Niven | Dennis Rucker | Michael Richardson | James Ingersoll | Larry Csonka | Mitchell Ryan | Lloyd Kino

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
06/06/2014TVDVDLibrary6 stars
 

Viewing Notes

Revisiting for my childhood movies project. Haven’t seen since the 70s, I’d guess. This is one stacked cast. I think the story is better than executed here. It should be a 2+ epic movie but how they tell it in this film there’s a lot of fat that could’ve been trimmed for a tighter production. Things pick up with the ships in the sea and the Zeros in the sky.

I like the use of actual archival footage from this battle but it’s really mismatched with the quality. I’m sure they didn’t have the tech to smooth that out at the time (basically they took 16mm film and rescoped it for 35mm). Some of the hero stuff is a bit hard to buy as I don’t think Heston’s character would really hop into a plane as he does here (also his son’s dilemma with his Japanese American girlfriend was unneeded melodrama but I get why they shoehorned that subplot into this movie).

Lots of other actors show up that aren’t credited like Tom Selleck and Eric Estrada. This is a crazy cast. Mifune is fine and reserved. Too bad they dubbed his voice. Almost none of Asian actors are credited. I do like the stories around Mifune in the making-of featurette.

Overall this is a movie worth the watch understanding the context and actual history it’s attempting to tell. Just wish they did a better job piecing it together.

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