To my surprise, this movie premiered on Friday which was usually set for comedy or animated movies. But this time it was a war action movie that my wife and I saw its trailer once few weeks ago and were immediately intrigued by it. As my wife was still on vacation and she told me not to wait for her, I saw this one today by myself. So how was the movie? Let's find out more below.
Brief Story Line
Set during the World War 2, story was focusing on the battle between the US and Japanese Naval forces. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Nimitz (Woody Harrelson - Zombieland: Double Tap etc) was now assigned to take command on the US Naval forces while supported by the intelligent officer Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson - Aquaman etc).
Meanwhile a group of dive bomber squad led by Dick Best (Ed Skrein - Alita: Battle Angel etc) under air group commander Wade McClusky (Luke Evans - 10 X 10, Beauty and the Beast live version etc) on the USS Enterprise led by Admiral William Halsey (Dennis Quaid - A Dog's Journey etc) were itching to retaliate against the Japanese.
However, they were also preparing their major attack to significantly weakening US position in the Pacific which would lead to the Battle of Midway.
Meanwhile a group of dive bomber squad led by Dick Best (Ed Skrein - Alita: Battle Angel etc) under air group commander Wade McClusky (Luke Evans - 10 X 10, Beauty and the Beast live version etc) on the USS Enterprise led by Admiral William Halsey (Dennis Quaid - A Dog's Journey etc) were itching to retaliate against the Japanese.
However, they were also preparing their major attack to significantly weakening US position in the Pacific which would lead to the Battle of Midway.
End of Brief Story Line
So this was another war movie which was set during the World War 2. It was a period that has been made into multiple films and TV series for decades. I said above that the trailer truly intrigued me and I was excited to see some cool war action sequence especially seeing the name Roland Emmerich who was famous for directing disaster movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and also action movies like Independence Day and few others.
After seeing the whole movie, I got to say that Emmerich did amazingly during the war action sequences. He managed to show some spectacular naval battle scenes especially during the climax part. Now I do not want to go into too much detail otherwise it would be too much, but to be honest, at first I thought the early part was not spectacular enough. However, I realized a bit later that it should not be surprising since that was not the main focus.
The one thing that I did not really enjoy personally was the middle part which to me was a bit too detail, especially those related to the background story. Although I understand that it was to show historical accuracy, but personally I would prefer them to be lesser (maybe just shown with short narrative words rather than showing the whole scenes). I believe it would not have any significance to international audience since the persons involved were so many and most likely we could not remember all of them.
Based on this, I could see that Emmerich was not trying to make a standard war movie, but instead a war history movie. However, despite lots of historical significance scenes, there were still few brief emotional moments in the end (to my surprise, my favorite was the one involving the Japanese). And due to those many scenes in the middle, I was unsure at first, what the story was all about. Only half way through the movie did I finally understand where the story was actually heading. And once that happened, I felt the story becoming exciting and I was highly anticipating the great battle.
This film has a large ensemble cast. Apart from the names in my Brief Story Line part, there were also other well known names in the more of support roles such as Aaron Eckhart (Sully etc) as Jimmy Doolittle, Mandy Moore (The Darkest Minds etc) as Dick's wife Anne Best, Nick Jonas (UglyDolls etc) as Bruno Gaido, Darren Criss as Lindsey, Etsushi Toyokawa as General Yamamoto and few others. A lot of the characters shown on this movie were non fictional as proven by the information prior to the closing credit scenes. There was no mid or post end credit scene, but I enjoyed watching them as it was accompanied by a nice 40's song.
One thing that I did not really get was the choosing of Ed Skrein as the main lead in such a major movie, seeing that his only other lead role was The Transporter Refueled (which let's face it he was no Jason Statham) while the rest were more as support roles. Perhaps it was due to his similarity with the actual Dick Best? Personally I got no problem with him, but I thought it might be too big of shoe for him to fill in as the main lead in here. He seemed cool when doing action roles, though less convincing in the more dramatic part.
For fans of war movie, this one might be satisfying particularly the battle scenes. However, if you are searching for a full almost nonstop suspenseful war film, then this might not be to your liking since it had a lot of scenes in the background to show the historical part. Do not expect this one to be a romanticizing of war story like the 2001 Michael Bay's movie Pearl Harbor so there would not be any romance in here. I personally did have a good time seeing this movie though not its entirety. So if you want to see some spectacular naval battle with great special effects, then give this a try but be ready for possibly longer than expected time to reach to the exciting part.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
After seeing the whole movie, I got to say that Emmerich did amazingly during the war action sequences. He managed to show some spectacular naval battle scenes especially during the climax part. Now I do not want to go into too much detail otherwise it would be too much, but to be honest, at first I thought the early part was not spectacular enough. However, I realized a bit later that it should not be surprising since that was not the main focus.
The one thing that I did not really enjoy personally was the middle part which to me was a bit too detail, especially those related to the background story. Although I understand that it was to show historical accuracy, but personally I would prefer them to be lesser (maybe just shown with short narrative words rather than showing the whole scenes). I believe it would not have any significance to international audience since the persons involved were so many and most likely we could not remember all of them.
Based on this, I could see that Emmerich was not trying to make a standard war movie, but instead a war history movie. However, despite lots of historical significance scenes, there were still few brief emotional moments in the end (to my surprise, my favorite was the one involving the Japanese). And due to those many scenes in the middle, I was unsure at first, what the story was all about. Only half way through the movie did I finally understand where the story was actually heading. And once that happened, I felt the story becoming exciting and I was highly anticipating the great battle.
This film has a large ensemble cast. Apart from the names in my Brief Story Line part, there were also other well known names in the more of support roles such as Aaron Eckhart (Sully etc) as Jimmy Doolittle, Mandy Moore (The Darkest Minds etc) as Dick's wife Anne Best, Nick Jonas (UglyDolls etc) as Bruno Gaido, Darren Criss as Lindsey, Etsushi Toyokawa as General Yamamoto and few others. A lot of the characters shown on this movie were non fictional as proven by the information prior to the closing credit scenes. There was no mid or post end credit scene, but I enjoyed watching them as it was accompanied by a nice 40's song.
One thing that I did not really get was the choosing of Ed Skrein as the main lead in such a major movie, seeing that his only other lead role was The Transporter Refueled (which let's face it he was no Jason Statham) while the rest were more as support roles. Perhaps it was due to his similarity with the actual Dick Best? Personally I got no problem with him, but I thought it might be too big of shoe for him to fill in as the main lead in here. He seemed cool when doing action roles, though less convincing in the more dramatic part.
For fans of war movie, this one might be satisfying particularly the battle scenes. However, if you are searching for a full almost nonstop suspenseful war film, then this might not be to your liking since it had a lot of scenes in the background to show the historical part. Do not expect this one to be a romanticizing of war story like the 2001 Michael Bay's movie Pearl Harbor so there would not be any romance in here. I personally did have a good time seeing this movie though not its entirety. So if you want to see some spectacular naval battle with great special effects, then give this a try but be ready for possibly longer than expected time to reach to the exciting part.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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