Delayed Reaction: The Midnight Sky

Premise: In a not-too-distant future, a dying scientist attempts to communicate to the crew of a space mission not to return to Earth.

 

The Midnight Sky might win the award for the 2020 film most screwed by 2020. It's a tough race. The new Bond movie was delayed after spending millions on a marketing push in March. Tenet became a symbol of studio hubris. Wonder Woman 1984 went from potentially the biggest box office earner of the year to a carrot for HBO Max subscriptions. The Midnight Sky wasn't going to be a huge box office hit, but it was meant for better things than this. First of all, it should be seen on the biggest screen possible. Parts of it were shot in IMAX and it's the kind of wide-shot, full landscape (and spacescape?) movie that should be soaked in. Instead, I didn't even watch it on my biggest TV. It's also George Clooney's first onscreen movie role in 4 years as well as his first prestige Oscar play in quite a while. Despite that, the movie was released on Netflix on 12/23 where it was almost immediately drowned out by Wonder Woman 1984, Soul, and Bridgerton. This movie didn't get a fair shake, by me or the world.

 

That said, it's not like this is an overlooked gem that people will discover for years to come and ask how we didn't appreciate it at the time. It's an uneven movie; Clooney's entry in the trend of major filmmakers and stars coming out with their space epic over the last several years (Interstellar, The Martian, Ad Astra). Ironically, it's a trend jumpstarted by another movie he's in: Gravity.

 

In a lot of ways, The Midnight Sky is two movies trying to communicate with each other. There's the spaceship story with Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, and others trying to get back to Earth and running into asteroids along the way. Then there's the battle against the elements movie with Clooney and the little girl. On paper, that's a more exciting movie than in practice. I fully get the complaints that this movie is too slow. It looks like an adventure movie, but more of it is meditative. It really would work best in a situation where you could let it wash over you. I could definitely see how I could've liked this movie if I watched it in more favorable conditions.

 

There is plenty to like in the movie. I love the cast. Clooney has an excellent beard. Between this and Tomorrowland, I'm convinced that he needs to be paired with children more. The casting of the space crew reads like a list of people Clooney wanted an excuse to work with: Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir. They even wrote Jones' pregnancy into the movie in a way that gave it a little more heft. I don't want to call the end a twist as much as a confirmation, but it works on an emotional level really well. Clooney shows range as a director that I didn't know he had. It's his first movie in a while that doesn't feel like a Coen Brothers impression.

 

Frankly, I can't point to much to say why I didn't love the movie. The "dull" critique is lazy but feels accurate. The contemplations throughout the movie aren't quite as intriguing as they should be and, despite the exciting sequences against the cold and space, it's never as thrilling as it should be. While still being an OK movie, it just ends up rating behind of lot of the similar movies that I listed before.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend