Midway

The second movie in our double feature last night was Midway and both my Dad and I really enjoyed it.  Intelligence officer Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) predicts that Japan will eventually attack the U.S. but he is ignored by Washington.  After the devastation of Pearl Harbor, Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet and he decides to listen when Layton predicts that the next attack will be at Midway even though Washington believes that the location will be the Aleutians.  He orders the USS Enterprise, under the command of Admiral Halsey (Dennis Quaid), to leave the Coral Sea to regroup near Midway.  Layton is correct and the Japanese are caught unaware.  Ultimately, because of the bravery of Squadron Leaders Wade McClusky (Luke Evans) and Dick Best (Ed Skrein) in a series of aerial dogfights, all three Japanese aircraft carriers are damaged and they withdraw from battle which turns the tide of the war in the Pacific.  The script is very rudimentary with lots of cliched dialogue (but that is to be expected with a Roland Emmerich blockbuster).  There is not a lot of characterization beyond that of Best but every character is portrayed as heroic, even the Japanese, and the actors do a good job with the material they are given.  As a devotee of historical novels, especially those having to do with World War II, I enjoyed learning about the events leading up to the battles portrayed in this movie.  However, this movie really delivers with spectacular visual and sound effects which are intense, to say the least.  From the attack on Pearl Harbor, to the Doolittle (Aron Eckhart) raid on Tokyo, to the actual Battle of Midway, the audience feels completely immersed in the action.  There were moments when I felt like I was in the cockpit with the pilots as they are diving from a nearly vertical angle to drop a bomb on the Japanese aircraft carriers.  This movie delivered exactly what I expected and I recommend it to fans of action blockbusters.