Midway
It’s battle stations for
Roland Emmerich as he unleashes his long-cherished take on the deciding
conflict of the Second World War.
There are
two types of war film. There’s the intimate, character-driven drama like Mrs Miniver (1942), Ice Cold in Alex (1960) and Another
Mother's Son (2017), and then there’s the historical epic like Saving Private Ryan (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Dunkirk (2017). The German director
Roland Emmerich has always favoured scale over intimacy and brings his flair
for spectacle to this colossal conflict of World War II. Drawing on all the
mastery of modern technology, Emmerich reveals the sheer monstrosity of war,
where black smoke turns day into night and planes flip like tiddlywinks to
their doom.
Midway was
the deciding battle of 1942 that tipped the balance of power between Japan and
the US in the Pacific. Kicking off with Japan’s unprovoked onslaught on Pearl
Harbor in 1941, the film quickly assembles a few key characters on which to
hang our emotions. Most notable of these is Dick Best, a cocky but courageous pilot
who was simply the best. He was to the joystick what Lewis Hamilton is to the
steering wheel. Played with gum-shewing bravado by the English actor and rapper
Ed Skrein, Best has to earn our affection through his actions and the love of
his wife, Anne (Mandy Moore). Then there’s Edwin T. Layton (Patrick Wilson),
head of fleet intelligence, who commands the respect of Commander-in-chief
Chester W. Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) through his unfailing intuition. He warned
them about Pearl Harbor, but they didn’t listen. Now he has to work all the
hours that God sends in order to predict the enemy’s next move. Patrick Wilson
has always cut a sympathetic figure, ever since he shrugged off the typecasting
of his role as a paedophile in Hard Candy
(2005). All the other characters come and go with a stroke of Wes Tooke's
keyboard, based on a screenplay arduously researched by the military obsessive
over many years.
So the
accent is on the action and the naval tactics. To Emmerich’s credit, and the
visual effects army he has hired, the battle scenes are genuinely awe-inspiring,
be they on water, in the air or under the sea. Intense isn’t the word for it.
The film will no doubt thrill fans of such military theatre and it certainly
drives home the utter waste of war, be it the human lives squandered on the
altar of glory or the resources that would bankrupt a small country.
It’s interesting
that a German director has chosen to highlight the heroism of the Americans in
the Second World II, although it’s the Japanese who are cast as the real
villains. In a footnote at the end of the film, we are told that 250,000
Chinese villagers were murdered for aiding the escape of an American commander.
It’s a rousing history lesson, though, albeit one that fails to engage on a
purely emotional level.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke
Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Etsushi Toyokawa, Tadanobu Asano, Luke
Kleintank, Jun Kunimura, Darren Criss, Keean Johnson, Rachael Perrell Fosket,
Alexander Ludwig, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson, Brennan Brown,
Jake Weber, Cameron Brodeur, Annie Trousseau.
Dir Roland Emmerich, Pro Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser, Screenplay Wes Tooke, Ph Robby Baumgartner, Pro Des Kirk M. Petruccelli, Ed Adam Wolfe, Music Harald Kloser and Thomas Wanker, Costumes Mario Davignon.
Centropolis Entertainment/Starlight Culture Entertainment Group/Street Entertainment/Shanghai Ruyi Entertainment-Lionsgate.
138 mins. USA/China. 2019. Rel: 8 November 2019. Cert. 12A.