Home > Drama >

Midway

Watch Now

Midway (1976)

June. 18,1976
|
6.7
|
PG
| Drama Action History War
Watch Now

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.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

Hellen
1976/06/18

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

More
Contentar
1976/06/19

Best movie of this year hands down!

More
Borserie
1976/06/20

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

More
Quiet Muffin
1976/06/21

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

More
pcsimonson1651
1976/06/22

Midway is a decent movie filled with great actors, and it follows the actual event during WW2 pretty closely. What kept this movie from being a truly great movie was all the dumb goofs, and bad actual footage of the battle. Someone needs to remake this important movie, but make sure the battle scenes are kept accurate by showing the correct airplanes, and ships of that time. Example: The 5 inch guns turrets , and a battleships main turret guns were not used to shoot down airplanes coming in for attack on a ship.

More
gilligan1965
1976/06/23

I've loved this movie ever since my Dad brought me to see it at a theater in 1976 (when I was nine)!This movie is literally a 'who's-who' of great American and Japanese stars and super-stars, such as Charlton Heston; Henry Fonda; James Coburn; Hal Holbrook; Glenn Ford; Toshiro Mifune; Pat Morita; Robert Mitchum; Cliff Robertson; Robert Webber; Robert Wagner; James Shigeta; John Fujioka; Robert Ito...and, many more.I love this movie, and, I love how actual World War 2 footage is inserted into the film to add to the scenes. Yes, ha-ha!:D Sometimes, a certain type of plane is shown, and, in the next scene, it suddenly becomes another type of plane; but, who cares, the movie is great! The black-and-white scenes at the beginning of the movie are from "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944) with Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, and, Robert Mitchum (also in this movie). And...of course, a love story (a controversial love story for this period) is fitted into the movie, as in almost every other war movie ever made.A lot of people 'bash' this movie, but, I happen to love it; and, any and every library and collection of war movies isn't complete without this! :)

More
James Hitchcock
1976/06/24

The traditional war film went into something of a decline in the 1970s, and "Midway" is one of the few examples from the second half of the decade. It features an impressive line-up of top Hollywood stars, including Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford and Hal Holbrook. Some other big names, including Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner and James Coburn, all appear in relatively minor roles. The well- known Japanese actor, Toshiro Mifune, plays Admiral Yamamoto, although his lines had to be dubbed into English; most of the other Japanese roles are played by Japanese-Americans such as James Shigeta and Pat Morita. Most of the big-name stars play real-life individuals; Fonda and Ford, for example, play the American commanders Chester W. Nimitz and Raymond A. Spruance. The main exception is Heston who plays the fictitious Major Matt Garth, a naval pilot who takes part in the battle. The film is mostly a factual account of the battle itself, but it also involves a fictional sub-plot. Garth's son Tom, like his father a naval pilot, has fallen in love with a Japanese-American girl who has been interned along with the rest of her family. The film has one or two flaws. The romantic subplot struck me as unnecessary and was not well integrated with the rest of the film. There was on over-reliance on stock footage in the combat scenes. Trying to recreate these events might have been expensive, but the old newsreel shots have a very different look to the rest of the film and tend to stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. The film-makers have also been criticised for using one ship, the USS Lexington, to represent all the carriers involved in the battle, whether American or Japanese, but in this instance they really had no alternative. All the Japanese carriers involved are now at the bottom of the Pacific, and it would not have been feasible to try and construct replicas. (James Cameron might have tried, however, had he been acting as director). As I said, this is a fairly traditional war film, but in one respect (apart from the use of colour) it clearly reflects the fact that it was made in 1976 rather than, say, 1946 or 1956. A film about the Battle of Midway made just after the war, and certainly one made during the war itself, would have been made with a much more propagandist agenda in mind, emphasising the moral superiority of the Allied cause and probably depicting the Japanese as bloodthirsty warmongers. There was none of this in this film; the battle is simply shown as the clash of two navies, not the clash of two ideologies, and certainly not as the clash of good and evil. There is no suggestion that the Japanese commanders are any less honourable than their American counterparts. Perhaps the trauma of Vietnam had made Americans less confident of their own moral superiority in foreign affairs than they had been previously.The standards of acting are fairly high, but as is often the case with ensemble casts of this nature there is no one outstanding contribution. Anyone familiar with World War II will of course know how the battle ended, but for anyone else director Jack Smight is able to conjure up a fair degree of excitement. Rather oddly, this is generated not just by the battle-scenes themselves, which are nothing particularly special, but also by the tense game of cat-and-mouse show in the earlier scenes as both sides try to work out their tactics without being 100% aware of the strength and location of the enemy forces. At the end we are left realising just how big a part luck played in the American victory at a time when defeat could have led to the war taking a very different course. 7/10

More
TankGuy
1976/06/25

December 7th 1941,the Japanese attack Pearl harbour, destroying many US navy ships and killing and wounding thousands, on April 18th 1942,in retaliation to this event, Lieutenant Colonel James "Jimmy" Doolittle of the US army air force leads an extensive bombing raid on the Japanese mainland which would later become known as the "Doolittle raid". This caused heavy damage to Japanese cities, namely Tokyo and morale too, the Japanese now knew they were no longer invincible to American attack and planned to attack Midway, a small island just off of Hawaii, hoping to draw the American forces out into the open and obliterate them. The Japanese hoped to also occupy Midway in order to extend their defensive perimeter, therefore enabling them to repel future American attacks, the battle that would decide this provides the basis for this film,MIDWAY,made in 1976.First of all, I fail to understand why everyone hate this movie so much, nearly every reviewer on IMDb bashes it.I thought this movie was awesome,I really enjoyed it and was absolutely awestruck by the way it was filmed and put together. The cast and crew seemed to have put a huge amount of effort into making the film and looked to have given it all they had and what do they get for their pains?, nothing but stick, the film as a whole looked extremely ambitious. Even though it does appear a little cheap, I'd rather have this film over the CGI crap of today, but that's just my opinion.MIDWAY depicts the battle superbly and the battle scenes in the film are just spectacular. Real battle footage and footage from other war movies is used to an amazing advantage, the first battle where the Japanese attack the airstrip on Midway was just fantastic, even though half of it was taken from TORA!TORA!TORA!(1970),the shots of the Machine Gun being fired, Trucks furiously exploding and crashing and a watchtower crashing to the ground were excellent. The two main air battles,especially the first one where the American planes battle it out with Japanese planes and a Japanese battleship really blew me away. The final 3 battles were the best parts of the movie, my favourite one being the first where the American dive bombers destroy 3 Japanese battleships whilst being bombarded with heavy Cannon and Anti-aircraft fire was exciting and really impressive, the explosions were so epic and realistic. The second battle where the Japanese attack the Yorktown was equally impressive and spectacular, watch out for the part where a Japanese Zero comes crashing into the ship's bridge(which is taken from Universal's very own AWAY ALL BOATS from 1956),causing an explosion and engulfing it in flames, again the shots of the heavy artillery giving the Japanese planes hell are ear shatteringly magnificent. The final explosive battle in which Charlton Heston's character and a squadron of Dive bombers destroy and sink the last remaining Japanese battleship was riveting and packed with adrenaline.The special effects were outstanding,especially during the final 3 battles, the shots of the planes and battleships exploding were extremely exhilarating, as were the shots of flames tearing across the decks of the ravaged battleships. The use of real World war two footage was a great idea and looks remarkable spliced into the battle scenes, the fact that this footage is in colour makes it ten times better, this footage was expertly chosen. I was really impressed with the images of Cannons and Anti-aircraft guns bombarding and battling it out with attacking aircraft but what really looked amazing were the shots of two different aircraft crash landing and exploding on the deck of the aircraft carrier.John William's soundtrack is excellent and gives the film a modern feel as does the camera-work, the way certain shots linger add to the seriousness of the film. The acting is top notch, Charlton Heston is perfect as the main character and other stellar performances come from Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Robert Mitchum,Cliff Robertson and Toshiro Mifune.Yes,the dialogue does get corny at times, but that's only to be expected of a Hollywood war movie. The romantic subplot between the American pilot and the Japanese girl was irrelevant to the plot but soon becomes forgotten about as the planning and battle scenes take over, so it doesn't spoil the film.MIDWAY is a terribly underrated and spectacular war drama packed with some of the greatest action scenes ever seen in a movie, explosive special effects and excellent acting also compliment the film and make it definitely worth watching, MIDWAY is up there with all the other war classics.10/10.

More