I just watched the 2019 Midway movie, and as far as I know (I have read in the topic, and listened quite a lot of podcasts -Dan Carlin's ongoing Supernova in the East is an excellent one to start with) it is actually more accurate that most "history inspired" movies. Frankly I expected Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour, only in Midway, and just wanted to watch the ships... and what I got corresponded quite well to the facts. Even the disastorous consequences of the Doolittle Raid (about 200 000! Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese by some estimates) were hinted at.


Yet critics tore it to pieces; sometimes citing inaccuracies, which they did not really get into. The most outrageous scene (guy jumps into parking bomber, shoots at incoming Japanese plane, it hits, sheares the tail of his plane off, guy survives without a scratch) has actually happened. As a movie it was not a bad one. No overdone dramatics, no silly love stories, no fictional heroes and villains. If it feels "flat" it does because, well, reality often is, compared to the Battle of Helm Deep, for example. Are critics so out of touch? Can't they just read the Wikipedia of the Battle of Midway before writing an article? (It really ruffles my feathers, because lately it seems critics love movies which frankly suck, and try to drag down movies which are quite OK if not outright good.)

No Wildcats. Compared to the 1970s Midway or Storm over the Pacific it's flat.