Midway

All-star cast star in a re-enactment of the pivotal World War two battle that turned the tide in the Pacific Theatre in the Americans' favor. A TV version of the film runs an extra 40+ minutes.

Sincere but lackluster attempt to bring a very complicated battle to the big screen. Really not much more than a bloated TV movie, suffering from a surfeit of often inappropriate stock footage, both real and from other, better films such as I Attacked Pearl Harbor, Destination Tokyo and Tora Tora Tora. The main fault is a crippingly insipid subplot with Albert's Japanese-American girlfriend and the daddy-son issues that result that should have been left on the cutting room floor. The film would have benefitted much more from concentrating on the real personalities involved, rather than inserting poortly-written fictional ones.

Out of the leads, only Holbrook and Fonda on the American side really hold one's attention. The rest are mostly just there (except Heston, who looks like he might sit down at any point and start literally devouring the scenery). The Japanese side fares better, with Shigeta's correctly fatalistic admiral especially standing out. Hearing the familar voice of Paul Frees coming out of such a distinguished actor as Mifune is a bit dismaying, though, to say the least! For all those realtively minor criticisms, the film aims to be accurate, and does capture the general tone of the battle quite well, which is more than you can say about Pearl Harbor.

P.S.: Seriously, though, what is with the scene at the end with all the people in bright funky 70s clothes milling around in the background? Kinda destroys the mood!

Note: The IMDb entry for this film has a few errors; not a surprise, since most of the supporting cast is not properly credited. I can say that John Schuck does not play Wilson (someone misidentified the similar but less-known Beeson Carroll). Some of the other actors listed here, most notably Mitch Ryan, only appeared in the longer version made for network TV with about a half-hour of scenes involving the Battle of the Coral Sea. Universal did include about ten minutes of the boring scenes with Susan Sullivan, but the Coral Sea battle footage remains unavailable.

Uncredited cast are listed in rough order of appearance.