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A Review of “The Midnight Sky (2020)“

 

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I am an absolute sucker for space and science fiction movies. When I heard that George Clooney, a charismatic and charming actor, was going to direct a space movie; I thought why not. Plus he hasn’t acted in a movie since 2016 so I wanted to see him again. The synopsis is simple “A lone scientist, Augustine (George Clooney), in the Arctic races to contact a crew of astronauts returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe”. So does this movie soar above the atmosphere or crash landing hard on the ground?

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Firstly, George Clooney gives a wonderful performance and might be the only actor that truly carries this movie. His interaction with a little mute girl Iris is some of the sweetest and the most heartwarming moments in the movie. Additionally, the movie is visually stunning whether it is on the arctic or in space. The visual effects are well done and the score, for the most part, is quite fitting. There are some great set designs such as the initial Arctic base and the spaceship. These all accumulate in some great cinematography and camera shots.

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The movie also tackles some poignant and meaningful themes about sacrifice, family and hope which is cliche but still done relatively effectively in the movie. There are also a lot of “action” scenes that are inspired by other movies including “Gravity (2013)” which George Clooney also starred in but these scenes still kind of entertaining nonetheless.

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However, the pacing of this movie is just atrociously slow. There are too many moments of little to nothing happening that drags this movie. There are also a fair amount of flashbacks and random nightmare which add nothing that just cut in from time to time further damaging the pacing. What’s also kind of annoying is that the Arctic stuff is way more enjoyable but in the first half of the movie, they constantly cut towards the Astronaut and space just when things were interesting in the Arctic.

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On that note of space, the space stuff with the astronauts is so boring. The things with the astronaut in space from the first half of the movie are so devoid of any stakes or emotion that it makes it difficult for me to feel any interest or attachment to any of the astronaut characters.  It gets even worse when the entire second half of the movie is focused entirely on the astronauts! It’s a shame that the movie didn’t just dedicate the entire story to Augustine and Iris on the arctic as this is the most effective element of the movie. The space stuff dampens the story. Due to all of this, the movie never builds enough tension or makes us feel Augustine’s commitment because we keep swapping to tedious characters or irrelevant flashbacks and nightmares. There is also a reveal at the end of the movie that just raises so many questions and slightly damages the story more for me.

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Overall, The Midnight Sky takes a lot of elements from other space movies and apocalyptic movies but doesn’t do it as well. It feels like a rather generic movie that doesn’t do anything new. It’s unfortunate as there is some spark of heart in the movie but the director George doesn’t dedicate enough time to it. This is sadly a case of all style but not enough substance movie. Only consider watching this if you want some cool space looking things or you love George Clooney but apart from that, skip it.


 

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