'Battle of Midway' Not a Must See

The image of “dive-bombing” is an easy one to conjure in your mind’s eye. Yet I can’t say I ever thought seriously about what the experience of dive-bombing might be like — you know, for the one doing the dive-bombing — until I saw “Midway.” In Roland Emmerich’s convulsive, more-authentic-than-not historical combat movie about the battle that took place between American and Japanese Naval forces from June 4 to 7, 1942, near the Midway atoll in the Pacific theater of World War II, we see U.S. bomber pilots, like the fearless flyboy Lt. Dick Best (Ed Skrein), approach a Japanese aircraft carrier from what must be a mile up in the sky. The U.S bombers zoom down at a nearly vertical angle, like guided missiles hurtling toward the ocean, so that as they approach their target they can blow it up with pinpoint accuracy.