Midway (2019) – A Movie Review

This 2019 film attempts to provide an accurate modern version of the story of the pivotal WW II naval battle at Midway.   The only actors whose names I recognized were Woody Harrelson as Admiral Nimitz, Dennis Quaid as Admiral Halsey and Mandy Moore as Ann Best, the wife of the hero of the movie Dick Best. Since this is an historical drama, I won’t add a spoiler warning but if you actually don’t know what happened at Midway then go to the last paragraph for my recommendation.

The movie begins with a scene in pre-war Japan where Edwin Layton is an American naval attaché and intelligence officer.  His Japanese counterpart Isoroku Yamamoto warns him that Japan will eventually attack America as part of its plan to dominate East Asia.

In December 1941 we meet Lieutenant Dick Best a naval aviator on the aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise.  He is a hotshot dive bomber and he is being sent on leave to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  But when his plane nears Pearl Harbor, he comes under attack from the Japanese aircraft that have just destroyed the US naval fleet.  Best’s plane is shot down but he escapes alive.

This devastating attack leaves Japan with an enormous advantage over the American fleet.  Specifically, the Japanese have six aircraft carriers to America’s two.  The War Department assigns Admiral Nimitz to do whatever is necessary to prosecute the war against the Japanese until replacement aircraft carriers can be built.  The plan they fix on is to surprise the Japanese at Midway and destroy as many of their aircraft carriers as possible.

Layton is put in charge of the effort to decode Japanese messages and use them to locate the Japanese fleet and lay the trap.  On the day of the battle the Enterprise sends out its planes along with bombers from Midway but they have trouble locating the fleet.  And they lose a number of planes to the Japanese aircraft.  But eventually they find the fleet and attack.  Most of the American flyers are shot down but the Japanese fleet is only damaged but not destroyed.  Best and his squadron return to the Enterprise and head out again for a last desperate attempt to finish off the carriers.  And they succeed.  Best sinks two of the carriers himself.  By the end of the day all four of the Japanese carriers have been sunk and Admiral Yamamoto orders the rest of his fleet to retreat.  The defeat gives the Americans the time they need to rebuild their fleet.

The makers of this movie made an effort to make it historically accurate.  The names of the protagonists are real.  Obviously, some license was taken for dramatic purposes but the story has not been made politically correct or overly propagandistic.  I enjoyed watching it.  The acting was decent, the special effects are very good and it maintains a pro-American viewpoint throughout.  One touch I especially liked was the quote by Admiral Yamamoto after hearing Roosevelt’s speech after Pearl Harbor, “”I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”  I recommend this movie to patriotic Americans.  Everybody else can fend for himself.