DIRECTOR: George Clooney
PRODUCERS: George Clooney & Grant Heslov & Keith Redmond & Brad Dorros
& Cliff Roberts
WRITER: Mark L. Smith
(Based on the book 'Good Morning, Moonlight by Lily Brooks-Dalton)
PERFORMERS: George Clooney Felicity Jones David Oyelowo Tiffany Boone
with Demian Bichir and Kyle Chandler
When I first I didn't exactly know what to expect, but I knew I wanted to give it a shot. With George Clooney in the leading role (and in the director's chair again) I trusted it was going to be a pleasant one. 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' proved that Clooney could do more than just act, but guide and direct a stellar cast without fail and not be in every scene all the time. Here in this one, he does it again and with such elegance only here he's the one who's carrying the whole story from start to finish.
'The Midnight Sky' is the story of a lone scientist played by Clooney who's holed up in a secluded safe house in the Antarctica warning any and all remaining survivors not to return for their own safety. As it happens, the earth is covered in ice and it's remained unknown as to what happened and why. He's completely shut off from the world and everyone around him and when the film reflects on his past life it's easy to see why. Meanwhile, there's a group of astronauts who are looking for an inhabitable planet to call home and with little to no success find one. One astronaut is pregnant and yet manages to hold her ground in the presence of space itself, that surprised me because I've never heard of a astronaut who's expecting in space before. In my time, no one ever talked about that or brought it up until now. How these two stories intertwine with one another is also a contributing factor to keeping my interest, like being in two places at once. Once both worlds collide and communication is made all the pieces of the puzzle come together and then there's this complete picture even though the payoff is not as rich as some may hope for.
Since I first saw her in 'Rogue One', Felicity Jones has proven time and time again her acting chops are worth seeing and although this is the second time I've seen her in anything, she really manages to pull off a convincing performance as a astronaut searching for other life within the galaxy while preparing to give it to her unborn child even in the middle of what seems to be an important mission. While all this is going on, Clooney's character finds a lonely girl in his bunk. At first I thought she was a projection of the past but then she turns out to be real and ends up bringing out something in him that he never thought was possible. Who doesn't like subplots like that? Like the surrogate mother/daughter bond between Ripley and young Newt in Aliens, unlike Newt however, you only hear the girl speak once and that's it. One thing I would have liked to see evolve was the relationship between the two unlikely pair. Her family was never mentioned nor brought up and yet somehow the actress managed to make it all work without overdoing it.
While it wasn't necessarily all that great, it certainly wasn't that bad either. I thought it was visually entertaining and on a deep level very dramatic. It was like 'Cast Away' meets 'Interstellar', I was also on the edge of my seat when the camper was flooding underwater and the two survivors had to escape with whatever they had and not look back. There were some pretty heavy moments especially near the end, but perhaps the one that stood out to me was Clooney and watching his past life unfolding before him while preparing for his last days. He knows he's about to die sooner or later and then he's stuck with this orphan which is the least of his problems, but winds up filling that empty void in his life he used to have but lost when he was younger. Sometimes the least expected things you experience are the ones that truly change you (PSALM 127:3-5). Between the Clooney storyline and the astronaut's storyline, I thought the astronaut's story should have been more developed and more explored because it touched on a few things that were already seen in past films like 'Interstellar' and 'Gravity', the only new thing I saw in it was when their ship gets damaged and the crew has to go outside and fix it, then one of them dies of flesh wounds... very shocking. Never have I ever seen that in a movie since 'Prometheus'.
'The Midnight Sky' is so much more than just your average post-apocalyptic flick or popcorn sci-fi crowd pleaser, it's a mystery filled with more questions than answers. How did we do while we were still here? Where do we go from here? or what's really out there in the universe that took God seven days to create? (see GENESIS 1-2:1-3 NIV) That being said, I would recommend this to any George Clooney fan or sci-fi post-apocalyptic fan out there. Chances are you might like it, or not. For my part, I give it a worthy viewing if you're looking something interesting to watch especially on a visually entertaining level on Netflix. My score for this one is a 3 1/2 out of a 4 mainly for effort and structure of story, the only good thing about this film is it's visual images and maybe some Oscar nods could be in order, but we'll see what happens.