Films to avoid

That dinosaur film sounds great fun!

I'm watching Jurassic World.

If you've seen Jurassic Park, don't bother with this. It's pretty much the same film

What was entertaining in the 40s and 50s doesn't look good in the 21st Century, and these sorts of films don't age well. Same with Abbot and Costello, possibly dare I say, even the Marx Brothers.

I am the exact opposite 

When I saw the trailer for Midway it reminded me of Pearl Harbor. Brilliant arial footage but fictional melodrama and contrived romance shoe horned in. All style, no substance.

With Pearl Harbor the events themselves are plenty enough to make a good film. You dont need to insert a soap opera story with Abercrombie and Fitch models to keep viewers attention.

If you want to go that route than make the soap opera 90% of the story and Pearl Harbor just a final act, like with From Here to Eternity.

But dont try and balance two completely different genres in the same film.

Far and Away was a really lost opportunity.

The government land giveaway to expand the country westward is really a historical story worth telling.

Instead they made it into a story about Tom Cruise taking his shirt off and beating up men twice his size whilst Nicole Kidman pouted.

I'm not saying there isn't substance and there is no love story per se, because the leads are all married men with children before Pearl Harbour, and the wives have a low key role, there's no affair or broken hearts, the funeral scenes are low key and perhaps not essential as the shot of all the bodies lined up is more than adequate to ensure people are aware of the numbers killed.

It's more a case of them trying to tick every landmark and ensure everyone knows everything in the lead up to Midway. It's more that the substance becomes laborious and nobody takes the lead e.g. we are not looking at this from an intelligence point of view, a pilots point of view, the admiral's point of view etc. It suffers because they don't want to miss anyone out or any part of the story. Each story therefore could be a film on its own and it become laborious. It is much better the Pearl Harbour, much better. 

It is just about 40 minutes too long because they squeeze everything in and this is where older films that didn't want to overrun would have had a conversation scene explaining another aspect of the plot that wasn't filmed e.g. the bombing of Tokyo and the pilots landing in China. 

It is probably best viewed at home because then you can choose to go and get a drink and skim bits that are going on too long. The flights scenes are good but hard to watch because they are spinning all over - probably factual - but hard to focus on in the cinema. I had to shut my eyes at one point. 

What they don't really achieve is any tension - perhaps because we know the outcome. They do involve the Japanese including meetings and planning strategies etc, again not sure these scenes were needed and they do drag a bit. 

There is a scene where two rescued pilots are killed by the Japanese on a ship. I do not know if this is a truthful scene because as both men are killed I don't know how they would know this happened. I think it is there to show how cruel the Japanese were with prisoners and it does, but again if it is fictional it wasn't needed - there are plenty of films focusing on the treatment of prisoners by the Japanese etc. 

A serious edit would make it a much better film. However it does without doubt show you just how brave these pilots were, how much they risked and how dangerous it was to be a pilot on a carrier at that time. It undoubtedly highlights their bravery and skill.