Friday, September 9, 2016

Film Review - Midnight Special (2016)

Midnight Special is written and directed by Jeff Nichols who made Mud and stars Michael Shannon as Roy a man who is escorting his son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) to a mysterious place at all costs meanwhile a religious cult led by Sam Shepherd and an FBI agent played by Adam Driver are also taking great interest in this special young boy.

Midnight Special is another well made film from Nichols and his leading man Shannon gives another reliable performance but I do not think it is as good as Mud mainly because Mud had more of a story to it whereas this has great ideas Sci-Fi and solid production values but it leaves its chief storytelling too sparse for my liking especially as I wanted to learn a little bit more about the cult which is sadly overlooked somewhat.

And also the end of the film feels like someone stole the set of Tomorrowland and plonked it in this film and given this mysterious nature the rest of the film built up towards to see that kind of ending does bother me a little bit as for the rest of the performances Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Shepherd and Driver are all totally fine but it is young Mr Lieberher that steals the show as every moment he has on screen is completely compelling and you get caught up in his journey more than you do the adult actors.

And so that was Midnight Special and it's not as good as Mud and is an okay Sci-Fi flick, 2 out of 5.

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