SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Claudio Carvalho In December 1941, after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Navy attacks an American Marine Base in the Wake Island in the Pacific. A small troop fights to defend the island aware that it is impossible to keep the position."Wake Island" is a dated movie of war propaganda with a corny story of heroism and patriotism. It is easy to understand the need of using the cinema industry to elevate the morale of the population, but presently "Wake Island" is a forgettable war movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Nossos Mortos Serão Vingados" ("Our Dead Will Be Revenged")

Toren G. Atkinson I'm a big fan of classic movies, but Wake Island is one of those buddy-buddy wartime films that doesn't quite fall into place for me. At the onset we're treated to a cast of M.A.S.H.-like characters with their pranks and foibles and stereotyped personalities, and the rest of the movie is basically combat. True to its age, Wake Island doesn't show any of the realism in warfare - typically we see the dirt get shot several feet in front of the actor and then the actor falls over - and we are treated to the overdone jingoism of the time. They've chosen the most uncharismatic actors to portray the Japanese and dress them up rather ridiculously. The actual history of the event is grossly misportrayed.Make no mistake, this is an entertaining hour and a half to be sure. But while the story is interesting and the acting is more than capable, this film could have benefited from twenty minutes more of character development and twenty minutes less of explosions. Though nominated for Best Picture, that award rightly went to The Magnificent Ambersons.

pompierson This movie came out in the first year of the war, and I remember well seeing it at a Saturday matinée, and playing it out in our back yard, wearing a kid's version of a Marine "tin hat." I've watched it on video many times since. The movie begins well, and has good sub plots, some serious, some humorous. Donlevy is excellent as the Marine CO, and the whole cast -- Robert Preston, William Bendix, Albert Dekker, Macdonald Carey et al. -- turns in convincing performances. Director John Farrow, who saw combat in the Royal Navy at the beginning of WWII and was discharged because of wounds, develops the tension well as overwhelming Japanese forces attack the Island, to be repelled once, and then returning to overrun it in compelling combat sequences. Because it is of the era, it catches the flavor of the era perfectly, and anyone trying to do a movie about the U.S. in WWII should see it. I can only compare it to the wrong in far too many ways 2002 "Pearl Harbor" -- messing up on details such as using the "Alpha/Bravo" phonetic alphabet instead of the "Able/Baker" of WWII, getting manners and haircuts wrong and blowing up nests of more modern destroyers when the Japanese concentrated only on the battleships. Wake Island clearly has no such mistakes.

Nazi_Fighter_David "Wake Island" is a battle for a small atoll in the Central Pacific Ocean west of Honolulu, which was attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, hours after Pearl Harbor... The small U.S. marine garrison held out until the Japanese overran the island on December 23... It is a story of sacrifice of the gallant and doomed defenders, movingly portrayed by William Bendix, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, MacDonald Carey and others... The battle scenes are chillingly photographed in Black and White, and the movie blows the clarion call for a new heroism... It is the 'Alamo of the Pacific,' the cry of 'Remember Wake Island," with the same stirring effects as 'Remember the Alamo,' one hundred years previously...Well done within its limits, the film bears the unmistakable stamp of truth, and hails as a realistic portrayal of brave men in war...