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Originally Posted by Frazod
Anybody seen this yet?
40% from critics, 90% audience reviews on RT.
Probably going to see it tomorrow. As a Navy vet, it almost feels like a moral imperative.
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It’s good. Go see it. But it’s mostly about the airmen, not as much about the ships.
I’m not good enough on the history to critique its accuracy. But it sets out to do a lot of things and does most of them well.
It’s not a Michael Bay flick. It isn’t an over simplified exercise in patriotism (there is plenty. Just not overdone). It did go out of its way to outline the Japanese story, although brief, still doesn’t run them out there as fodder on the way to victory. It also didn’t shy away from the loss.
While it did a good job of staying away from tropes, it could have used more backstory and there were a few things they spent time on that they left dangle.
One thing it does well is period stuff (at least to the extent of my knowledge). Let’s face it. The 40s were hard. Very hard. And it reflected it. Nothing was clean and shiny despite being relatively early in the war, everything was mechanical and had to be operated and it didn’t shy away from the fact that some of the shit didn’t work.
The other critical piece is it did a good job establishing the stakes and characters without beating you over the head with it for the most part.
The aerial scenes were done right. There were a few scenes in the water that the cgi was bad, but nothing horrible. As a dude that’s spent some time in an airplane (albeit never dive bombed a damn thing) the aerial scenes alone were worth the price of admission.
One thing that might cause it trouble is it tried to tell the Japanese side. They kind of touched what makes those guys tick (for anyone that doesn’t - listen to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. His latest series called Supernova in the east about the buildup of Japan is amazing). But they didn’t spend the requisite time to not make it look like they were kind of idiots. I know better but not because of the movie. I mean it tried, but understanding their position is just complicated. It also doesn’t set them up as evil invaders, which is great for me, but may not be what some patrons are expecting.
If there are any qualms at all they’re pretty minor.
- the story was pretty busy and some stuff was shallow out of necessity
- you just can’t cast Woody Harrelson in this stuff. He acted it fine he’s just too recognizable.
- a little bit of the naval cgi was wonky.
Definitely worth a watch in my book although I haven’t read any reviews. There may be some valid counterpoints that I don’t see.