I’ll give you three guesses as to what this movie is about based on title and cast alone. Go ahead, guess. You won’t come close. Did you guess: “outer space alien child pursued by the FBI, army and the local Branch Davidian-like cult he belongs to?” Aw, better luck next time.
Would you believe Michael Shannon as protective father? I wouldn’t believe Michael Shannon as a protective warden. It’s weird seeing a pairing of Shannon and Joel Edgerton with the realization that Edgerton is the heavy.
Midnight Special is awfully coy about getting around to what’s going on. We know there’s a missing child (Jaeden Lieberher) in the custody of Roy (Shannon) and Lucas (Edgerton). Then the film slowly introduces the pursuants including local police, the FBI, and the religious cult where mock Amish partons repeat the child’s random numerical babblings as if they were scripture – this is where the FBI gets involved; the babblings are not actually random, but highly secretive military code – the kind that’s encrypted so nobody can, at random, pick it up and repeat it to a gaggle of sack-dressed idiots. The child can pick up secret radio waves from space. Huh. What else can he do? And where are they going? And why does the cult want him back?
It isn’t long before we learn that the child does indeed have weird inhuman powers and folks are willing to use lethal force to achieve their
personal agendas to retrieve the boy — I’m still left wondering what they plan do once successful, but, hey, movie. Ok, so seriously, when do we see that eerie, unstable Michael Shannon we’ve come to know? C’mon, where’s he hiding? Frankenstein doesn’t do straight roles, does he? And good gravy! What happened to Kirsten Dunst? She used to be the girl Spider-Man would fight for – now she’s perfectly at home with the sack dress folks. This is just acting, right? Right.
While Midnight Special perhaps saw itself as a modern E.T., I found it far more similar to disasters Knowing and Mercury Rising. It’s better than both those films, but so is cleaning out the inside of a microwave open after a burrito explosion. There are a few nice scenes here with FBI guy Sevier (Adam Driver), but nothing you’ll remember past … Midnight. Maybe that’s the Special part.
Glowing eyes and not yet grown
Looks like the kid from Home Alone
Save that child! Save that child!
Ground be shakin’, don’t be a-feared
Dad is Michael Shannon, weird!
Save that child! Save that child!
Satellite downed from beyond the sky
Guess the kid is a little shy
Save that child! Save that child!
Southern chase in great demand
Did this become Tomorrowland?
Save that child! Save that child!
Rated PG-13, 112 Minutes
D: Jeff Nichols
W: Jeff Nichols
Genre: Chasing the alien
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Those desperately awaiting E.T. II
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People with fresh memories of Knowing
