The new movie “Midway” by director Roland Emmerich is not a remake of the original “Midway”, released in 1976, that starred Henry Fonda and Charlton Heston. This film provides a new perspective of arguably one of the most complex and significant war battles in human history. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941, the Japanese had 9 Air Craft Carriers to our 3. The Japanese had many more and higher quality planes and battleships that the United States had. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had a huge Naval advantage over the United States and only because of Army intelligence, right decisions of a few people and luck, the United States was able to win Midway and ultimately the war in the Pacific.

At the center of this story about a great moment in history, was Army intelligence led by Rear Admiral Edwin Layton, played by Patrick Wilson. Only due Layton’s and collaboration with a brilliant code breaker, Joseph Rochefort, the United States was able to outwit and out guess the Japanese.

As with the 1976 version of Midway and and “Tora Tora Tora”, released in 1970, this new version does a very good job of explaining the complex chess game of strategy that both sides faced from June 4-7, 1942. The logistics of being able to arm planes with torpedo’s to bomb the enemy Air Craft Carriers and Battleships, or stay nearby the carrier to defend from enemy bombers became a complex game of chicken and for Midway, the United States made more correct decisions and was more lucky than the Japanese, who lost 4 Carriers to our one, “The Yorktown”. The Japanese also lost 3057 men and the US casualties were 307.

I thought the special effects of showing the aerial battles and most importantly the dive bombing was outstanding. One can only wonder how any human being flying an airplane built in the 1940’s can aim this machine at a 75 degree angle straight into enemy fire and land a torpedo on the deck of an Air Craft Carrier and then pull away is hard to believe was even possible. Considering the number of guns aimed right at the pilot and co-pilot, it is a miracle that any of the planes that made such courageous dives into certain death ever made it through to drop the payload.

I thought the acting was very good throughout this film that included several known actors, including: Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson and Mandy Moore. As far as the low 36% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, the special effects alone, should give this film at least a 75% rating with another 10% for great story telling about an extremely important moment in world history. Once again, the critics are wrong, and I highly recommend Midway. 

What is more interesting than the new film, “Motherless Brooklyn”, directed by Edward Norton, is the 20 year timeline on how this film was finally made.

This story all started in 1999 when Edward Norton purchased the rights to Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn. It was first decided to change the time of the film from 1999 to the 1950’s. Then 13 years went by until Edward Norton finally completed the writing of the script. Then another 2 years until 2014 until Norton decided to direct the movie himself. It then took another 4 years to finally start shooting this movie in February 2018 and within weeks on March 22, 2018 a fire broke out in one of the buildings used for production and a firefighter Michael R. Davidson of Engine 69 was killed in the fire. Production finally resumed over a week later, but there are outstanding lawsuits suing Norton’s production company that are still pending.

The point of all this is to remember that the road from idea to shooting, to end of production and then release of any movie can very often take many years, many millions of dollars and after all of this, the end result can be a movie like this one, that is both too long and too boring. Why so much time and effort was spent to make this film, that does not have enough of an interesting story, escapes me. This also escapes the critics who are giving this movie a very anemic 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a number that I unfortunately agree with.

This story is about political corruption in Brooklyn in the 1950’s and one of the most impressive things about this film is the attention to detail, with every parked car on every road filmed a car from the 1940’s or 1950’s, then add the period clothing and then set design and the budget for this film that looks like it might barely break even must have been very high.  Another tell tale sign of a movie that will no do well, is the small number of theaters in my area that show this movie. 

I thought the acting in this movie was good, regardless of the problems. Starring Edward Norton as a private investigator who has a severe case of Tourette’s Syndrome, Bruce Willis who has a small part in the beginning, and Alec Baldwin who has some very good scenes at the end of this film.  It seemed to me that introducing Tourette’s, was not only unnecessary but perhaps an idea to make a long and mostly boring movie more interesting. For me, this did not work, and neither do the 25 or so episodes of Tourette’s by Norton’s character. I can only wonder how Edward Norton feels after spending so many years trying to get this movie to theaters only to have below average ratings after so much effort for so long. That is the movie business in a nutshell, perhaps the most difficult and most risky business in the world.

Due to the mostly boring and too long story, I agree with the critics this time and do not recommend this movie.

“Terminator: Dark Fate” is the sixth Terminator movie in the franchise and what was done very right with this latest installment was that James Cameron, threw out all that happened in the previous movies and started all over again with a new timeline. This was the only way to continue this great movie franchise that started in 1984 with the original “Terminator” film.

In the last Terminator movie, “Terminator Genisys”, released in 2015, the timeline was so complex and convoluted that the entire film made no sense. Eventually, with any story that involves time travel, an understandable and common sense story can get lost very quickly. This newest Terminator movie restarts the original idea created in the original “Terminator”, with a new Armageddon created by robots with the same reason for time travel. This time, to go back in time to end the life of a young Mexican woman who was helping humanity to defeat the machines, before she had a chance to save the human race.

With all of Terminator movies, the special effects are extremely good, but this one is one step better than the previous films because some of the action scenes are spectacular at a level that it is hard to believe that even with computer generation, the director was able to pull off some of the amazing action.

This latest installment, brings back Linda Hamilton, who last appeared in a Terminator movie in “Terminator Judgement Day”, that was released in 1991. Her appearance in this sequel is vital to the story line and most will be surprised at how she had aged, because she does look older than her 63 years.

The new protector of the young Mexican woman, Dani Ramos, played by Natalia Reyes, is actress Mackenzie Davis who is a enhanced human, not a robot that I thought was a very good additional idea for this story. Arnold Schwarzenegger is once again in another Terminator movie, having appeared in all of them expect for “Terminator Salvation”, released in 2009. This time around Arnold has not only aged, but over the years has developed very human characteristics, including even empathy for other human beings. Another great new idea is that the new Terminator has all the technology of the liquid metal version introduced in 1991, but this one can actually split into two terminators, with the second robot only skeletal.

The critics on Rotten Tomatoes are wrong again, giving Terminator: Dark Fate only a 70% rating. For the special effects alone, this movie should be given at least a 90% rating and I highly recommend this film.