Midway: An Action-Packed History Lesson

Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a few brave men risked their lives to change the fate of the world. The Battle of Midway marked a pivotal turning point in the Pacific Theater during WWII, and now the true story of this heroic feat is coming to the big screen on Veterans Day weekend.

MIDWAY is an action-packed history lesson, both entertaining and informative about the clash between a small American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy. What's particularly interesting about this film is that it's told from multiple perspectives, giving audiences an understanding of all sides of the conflict.

"Pearl Harbor is the greatest intelligence failure in American history," says Admiral Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) in the MIDWAY trailer. Admiral Layton was part of a team of intelligence officers who worked to break Japanese communication codes. At the time, the U.S. Navy understood the warning of the attack, but not Japan's military power.

Leading up to the Battle of Midway, however, the intelligence officers broke a crucial code that revealed the next planned strike, and this time, the men were ready.

Ed Skrein portrays one of the American soldiers who fought in Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. While Wilson's Admiral Layton is thoughtful, Skrein's character leads the action — though, we do see him go through a transformation as he begins to see his role in the war differently.

We also see the point of view of the Japanese soldiers, led by Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi (Tadanobu Asano). The movie explains why their military attacked the U.S., after President Roosevelt stopped shipments of oil and steel. Of course, there's a lot of history there, and MIDWAY gives a glimpse at Japan's quest for power and why they saw Pearl Harbor as an opportunity to advance their expansion goals.

All of these perspectives provide us with a full picture of the incredible real events. "What makes it, to me, a modern epic is that you have to include the perspective of the Japanese," writer Wes Tooke told AMC in an exclusive interview. "If you don’t have that, then you’re just telling this kind of jingoistic thing, and that was not what we were interested in."