Dauntless

Audience Reviews

View All (22)

Tracy L This movie is hard for me to review. In large part, it is based on my father's experience at the Battle of Midway. He led his wing of Dauntless dive bombers in the attack that destroyed HIJMS Kaga. (Btw, he missed; a fact that my mother said bothered him for the rest of his - relatively short - life.) His plane was shot down, like most of the others in the attack. Then he spent 9 days in a rubber raft with his rear gunner. They were picked up by a PBY piloted by - the director told me that you can't get stuff like this in a movie - an old football friend of his from Mississippi. If you watch, you'll see my dad as a character in the film. So this is in the way of an heirloom for my family. And my review is based on the way the fight actually went. Above you hear many saying that the CGI is pretty good and it is. They also complain about the way the film is mainly about surviving after the attack on the Japanese carriers. But that's where the film is best. The entire attack that destroyed Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu took about the time allowed in the movie: 10 minutes. After that the main story for the Americans (and the Japanese) was surviving. The film is largely about that and does a great job of portraying just how vicious the battle was, how difficult it was to survive it, and what kind of guts it took to pull that off. My father was lucky; he did survive. A good proportion of his wing did not. This film is mainly about that. And surviving a battle is the BIG story. The attacks are just the beginning of the process. Dauntless is one of the few films about that and deserves an audience. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/23/25 Full Review Alessandro A How were they able to conceive such a ridicolous movie? The old one was clear, thrilling and well conceived. In this one you don't understand anything about the situation, dialogues are absurd, acting crancky. You need guts to produce something like this. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 05/08/25 Full Review Aidan B Washed out and totally reliant on CGI. The lack of attention to detail or continuity prevented me watching more than five minutes. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 03/01/24 Full Review Kent W This was a tough one. With a bigger budget, this could have been a classic WWII movie. If you get past the rough script and forced CGI then you'll find a tough movie about survival during WWII. And even with the rough CGI, there are a few scenes with carrier takeoffs that are spectacular, especially when the planes are falling into formation. I also thought the soundtrack was very well done. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 07/02/23 Full Review John B I thought it was ok overall, but seemed to be more of a battle summary of Midway along with some of the hardships that the men encountered out at sea for survival Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 06/23/23 Full Review M G This is a pedestrian war movie effort; pedestrian storyline played out with pedestrian acting. VERY loosely based on a true story, Dauntless works a very predictable lost-at-sea story into a paper-thin dramatization of WW2's battle in the pacific theater. Inferior to Midway or Red Tails or Devotion, if you've seen any of those films then there is absolutely no reason to forfeit a couple of hours of your life to this one. Aside from some decently-done flight sequences, the most compelling note of the film is the answer to the question; Whatever happened to Judd Nelson & C. Thomas Howell? Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/29/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Dauntless

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Most Popular at Home Now