Movie review – “Midway” (1976) ***

Solid, no-nonsense account of battle. Unfortunately done in that crappy Universal style that looks like a mini series – and a 70s mini series at that. But the quality of the cast helps a lot – Henry Fonda, Chuck Heston, Glenn Ford, Robert Wagner, etc. The Japanese are not demonised – they are shown to be professional soldiers who simply make a few errors. Luck, which ran against the Americans in the Philippines, was with them at Midway. The intercutting of real war footage with the studio stuff does jar at times but because it’s the real deal it has this extra resonance. The subplot about Heston’s son marrying a Japanese girl is quite effective.