Midnight Special

You wait for something big in this film for too long, and when it finally comes, it's not what you imagined. There are good scenes, but even better acting performances, with Michael Shannon being simply great in every role for me. Adam Driver shows that he is not just Kylo Ren, although you will still feel that he plays somewhat the same, even though more on the good side. (06/17/2016)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the new millennium? Not a chance. Midnight Special is rather like an average episode of The X-Files. Though it is well cast and the plot is well paced, the film is emotionally flat (with only a succinct depiction of the characters), not very clever (a boy is able to knock a satellite out of the sky through force of will, but he can’t stop a car in which he is being kidnapped by two old men?!) and, in working with the genre, it merely repeats familiar motifs without the slightest update or surprise. The climax reaches for narrative grandeur, but it doesn’t offer even a fraction of the awe or intellectual depth of similarly conceived genre climaxes (The Abyss, Arrival, Annihilation). For Nichols, this must have been just a routine studio commission; I don’t believe that he made Midnight Special for creative gratificaiton. Two and a half stars. (05/08/2020)

Euphoric opening scene (the best road tension since Drive), very good first hour, and a few solid scenes after it. Unfortunately, the rest is one of the worst things Nichols has ever written/filmed. The conclusion is purely full retard... i.e., full late Shyamalan. A terrible pity... as a tribute to seventies sci-fi ok, but as a dramatic whole with a rather subtle psychological line its very scattered. [Berlinale 2016] (02/25/2016)

I wouldn’t be that critical of this film. Sure, the premise is really crazy, but the filmmaking craft is more than solid for a realistic sci-fi. The same goes for actors who have gathered in a more than decent cast. Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and Adam Drivers are among those today’s actors that are nice to watch and usually do not disappoint. If you accept the premise, count on not being disappointed by its effectiveness. (06/27/2018)

Great cast, focused direction, old-fashioned sci-fi feel. Unfortunately, it's a bit bland in the end. It doesn't make use of the interesting themes it presents. There’s no catharsis, nothing. Adam Driver is woefully underused, and so is Sam Shepard. The comparisons to E.T. are spot on, but it doesn’t win your heart. Jeff Nichols seems unsure of what he wants to say. (02/22/2024)