Dauntless the battle of midway1/11/2024 ![]() This is a factor of Midway that has not received much attention from dramatic tellings of the story. There are, mercifully, no Playstation-esque dogfights with dynamics closer to X-wings than Dauntlesses…īut the main focus is the aviators left in the water for days while the battle either raged around them or drifted over the horizon, leaving them alone in the immensity of the ocean. Frankly, the VFX look no worse than many higher-value productions, and if the trailers for ‘Midway’ are representative, it looks as though ‘Dauntless’ might have the edge on accuracy and avoidance of sheer silliness. The animation looks like animation, but the behaviour of the aircraft in flight is realistic enough, and there’s a satisfying attention to the minutiae of flying such as navigation and fuel economy. ![]() This is obvious from the outset but once the viewer has adjusted, the visuals are solid – the scenes of SBDs launching from the ‘Big E’ to the strains of Gustav Holst’s ‘Jupiter’ are enjoyable, even impressive at times (there’s a particularly nice shot, presumably all digital FX, showing the mainwheels of Vandivier’s SBD leaving the deck and retracting), and the subsequent battle is well done within the constraints of the production. It is here that the limitations in budget are most obvious, with visual effects overwhelmingly in the realm of CGI, green screen and digital matte painting. John Enick as Lee Kearney, the inexperienced gunner on his first combat missionĪlthough the eponymous battle largely forms a backdrop to the plight of Vandivier and Keaney, the first quarter of the film in particular is heavy on air-sea combat. Mercifully, the filmmakers avoided the silly and ahistorical ‘Strawberry’ callsign which the 1976 film applied to the PBY patrol boats and which many people now seem to think is fact… The captain of the flying boat, Lieutenant Bennett (Adam Peltier), an old friend of Vandivier is particularly motivated in this regard. Providing a counterpoint to this very static part of the story is the crew of a PBY Catalina, ostensibly scouting for the fleet, but hoping to pick up ditched aviators if the opportunity allows. This crew is one of those from USS Enterprise involved in one of the first, devastating strikes on the main Japanese carrier group, forced to ditch and drift in the water, hoping desperately for rescue. The majority of the film is given over to SBD pilot Ensign Norman Vandivier (Jade Willey) and his inexperienced gunner Lee Keaney (John Enick). Moreover, it seems that ‘Midway’ aims to follow its 1970s namesake by portraying the broad sweep of the action, while ‘Dauntless’ has a much narrower focus. While Emmerich’s film boasts a fair smattering of recognisable faces (and the 1976 film an ‘all star cast’), ‘Dauntless’ is a lower-budget affair with no big-name actors the only two cast members with names prominent enough to put on the poster are former ‘Brat Pack’ members C Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson, in relatively minor parts as senior officers. Though the second of those, Roland Emmerich’s ‘Midway’, has not yet been released, it is probably fair to say that both the 2019 Midway films could not be more different. Surprising, then, that two films set during the battle should arrive in the same year, especially when that year is not a major anniversary (77 years). The only English Language feature film previously to cover the events of June 1942 was the 1976 all-star-cast affair which was something of a mixed success (and which will be the subject of a future article). The Battle of Midway has not appeared in film as often as it might, given the engagement’s significance to the US Navy and the entire American narrative of the Second World War. Whether by coincidence or not, the release date is Trafalgar Day, which somewhat emphasises the link between the two battles (Midway is widely considered the ‘USN’s Trafalgar’, and Midway Day is celebrated in the US much as Trafalgar Day is in the UK). My thanks to The Warrior Agency for the review copy. Today (21 October 2019) is the release date for ‘Dauntless: The Battle of Midway’ on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download/streaming, and as a rare example of a feature film about naval aviation, it warrants a review from Naval Air History.
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