Midway

This week Steve and I had a change from gaming and went to see the new film by Roland Emmerich on one of the decisive battles of the Pacific war. 

Although it is over 2 hours long the time passes quickly with the plot moving along at a pace.  From my admittedly limited knowledge of the battle the film seems to stick to the historical facts.  Nor does it ignore the 'other side of the hill'.  The Japanese perspective is shown, including the tensions within the navy and also between the army and navy.  I liked the depiction of the difficulties faced by the opposing commanders, who had to make a crucial decision, often with only partial information of the enemy position.  It reminded me of the similar episode in WWI when Jellicoe had to deploy his fleet without knowing exactly the location or the High Seas Fleet.  In these days of the all-seeing eye of the satellite we tend to forget how difficult it was for commanders in the past.

The film could not have been made without the use of CGI and on the whole these are very impressive, the opening sequence with a plane landing on an American carrier in particular.  However, the sinking of the Arizona seemed to be a little too much like an arcade game.