Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Midway (2019)

10/11/2021

Midway (2019) - Emmerich's big WWII turkey

♥

+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

+ Most Deserved Flop of the Year

Glossy stars and huge explosions outline this good-looking poster for Roland Emmerich's Midway

The relationship with the increasingly hostile Japanese had gradually deteriorated ahead of the devastating Pearl Harbor attacks on the US Navy in Hawaii in December 1940. The Pacific Theater gets a decisive battle in Midway.

Midway is written by Wes Tooke (Jean-Claude Van Johnson (2017, TV-series)) and directed by Roland Emmerich (Franzmann (1979)).

Variegated and uninteresting, Emmerich here gives us his version of the famous Battle of Midway, which feels at least as phony and super-glossed as Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (2001). Filled with wide-angled effects shots, which impress, but their feeling subsides fast, and then it doesn't help Midway that most will have Christopher Nolan's masterpiece Dunkirk (2017) still in fresh memory.

The whole starry cast of Midway are wasted in respectful, historical parts: Foremost stands Ed Skrein (The Model (2016)) in an awful, scenery-chewing performance with a horrible New York accent as the film's hero, who is named Dick Best, (no kidding!) Credit titles ascertain that he was real enough, but it just, regrettably, doesn't seem like it during the elapsed movie.

Related posts:

Roland Emmerich: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

White House Down (2013) or, Duck, Mr. President!
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 (2009) or, Giant Mega-Stupid Movie!

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

10,000 BC (2008) - Emmerich's mammoth turkey

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 100 mil. $

Box office: 127.4 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.27 times its cost)

[Midway premiered 24 October (Germany) and runs 138 minutes. Emmerich had attempted to get the film green-lit by a major studio since the 1990s, without luck. His assembling the budget of 100 mil. $ makes it one of the costliest independent movies of all time. 15 companies and governmental support bodies were involved in the financing and making of the film. Shooting took place from September - December 2018 in Hawaii and in Montreal, Québec. It opened #1 to a 17.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another two weekends in the top 5 (#2-#5), grossing 56.8 mil. $ (44.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 42 mil. $ (33 %) and South Korea with 7.3 mil. $ (5.7 %). Lionsgate reportedly spent 40 mil. $ promoting the film. Emmerich returns with Moonfall (2022). Skrein returned in Naked Singularity (2021). Midway is rotten at 42 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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10/11/2021

Midway (2019) - Emmerich's big WWII turkey

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