Midnight Special
Midnight Special is a sci-fi film about a father trying to protect his son from the U.S Government, a strange cult and a former electrician. Why do those people want this eight year old kid? Because, like every child character in the history of cinema, he has weird supernatural abilities.
I have a feeling that this is going to be a shorter review than some of my other recent reviews. This is partly because I generally find more to talk about when reviewing a movie I didn’t care for rather than one I did, but also because there’s little I’m willing to say about this pretty good movie since any more would contain spoilers.
It would be interesting if this kid played Batman. “Do you bleed?”
This is a film thriving on the mystery. One could easily think of this as an extended episode of The X-Files or The Twilight Zone. I appreciate in a time where we get 2 hours of one act and about 30 minutes of stuff happening (cough, cough Batman v Superman), that this film pretty much starts where you’d expect any other writer to start this film’s second act.
We are already in the process of following this escaped kid and his father escorting him to safety. The involved characters are introduced to us in an organic way that weaves its way pretty nicely through the plot. I know who each of these people are and what they want at a good pace. On top of that, the mystery’s solution is trickled This is pretty darn good screenwriting.
The father in this story is by Michael Shannon and the son by . Both play these roles with deft skill, getting across the love and respect they have for one another in a relatively short amount of time. also impressed me for his ability to balance the “powered kid” cliché with actually acting like a kid. He feels definitely more like Haley Joel Osmond from The Sixth Sense by his terrific director rather than whatever those kids from Signs were being told to do by their talentless hack.
If I were to mark any flaw in this film is that there are a couple of moments, particularly those close to the end, that I feel could have been cut. This problem extends at certain points to the strangely elongated feel to some of the reactions. Maybe, I’m wrong about that latter point and just need to go to another screening. The former complaint I feel strong in its founding.
Overall, however this is a fine little science fiction yarn with plenty of mystery and wonder in a small place and surrounding a small boy.
Recommended Scenario: If you’re into small-scale science fiction.
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