The Midnight Sky

 

The Midnight Sky is a science fiction drama directed by and starring George Clooney. It is based off of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel, Good Morning, Midnight. In the film Clooney plays Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist and former astronaut whose entire career has been focused on looking for habitable planets for humanity to move. Then in the blink of an eye a natural disaster strikes the earth so he must race to tell a crew of astronauts to not return home. 

I thought that the plot was interesting, it kept me engaged throughout even though there were quite a bit of holes in it. For one, I would have liked a lot more detail surrounding how they got to the situation they were all stuck in the first place and specifically what exactly happened to Earth. Additionally, the outdoor scenes with Clooney’s character were not thought out well. Based off of the limited information given, it did not seem realistic that he could survive any long stretch of time outside. I did, however, enjoy how this wasn’t a typical space movie, the director did a good job interchanging between the lives of the crew of astronauts in space and the lives of those still on earth.

I liked the diversity in the cast with Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler and young Caoilinn Springall who really held her own against Clooney. To be honest the acting from the entire cast was great but there was a lack of strong character development so it was hard to fully connect with all of the players in the story.

The cinematography was weak, a lot of the sets looked fake but where they did do well was in those vast Artic landscapes making the scenes look chillingly cold.

In the end I’d say the movie was just okay. Not necessarily worth watching again but not a complete waste of time either.