Film Review- Midnight Special

Midnight Special, the latest offering from "Mud" director Jeff Nichols, is a science-fiction drama starring Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst and Adam Driver that has released to positive critical acclaim while only earning a modest amount at the box-office. The film follows Shannon's attempts to protect his son, who is gifted with supernatural abilities, as they journey across the U.S. to find the place that the boy continuously prophesied about in his "sermons". While the film is ambitious and the basic concept is promising, the overall product is disappointing from a storytelling perspective.

This is mainly due to the scale of the story being told within this film. Delving into the realms of cult communities, estranged families, FBI investigators and other worlds, Midnight Special tries to wear many hats, and they don't mesh well together. Nichols tries to juggle sub-plots while servicing each of his talented cast, yet the limited 111minute run time makes this nearly impossible. The film does not take enough time to introduce us to this world and to our main players, while simultaneously taking an unusual amount of time to really build up some steam and out all the pieces in place. In my opinion, this story would have benefitted from being made as a TV mini-series, as it really would have allowed the filmmakers more time to set the stage and deeper explain the mythology, all the while offering a very talented cast more time to explore their characters and show off their acting chops. 

And that is possibly my biggest gripe with this film: it completely wastes the good work done by its fantastic cast. Michael Shannon as dedicated father Roy is fantastically stoic, putting in a superbly understated performance as is to be expected from the Kentucky native at this point. Adam Driver also impresses as FBI investigator Paul Sevier, while Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton, Sam Shepard and child actor Jaeden Lieberher all also deliver very strong performances. Yet, we are not given enough reason to care about them or their relationships with each other due to their rushed story-arcs. Driver in particular is criminally underused here. His character's arc is never explored to its fullest potential and thus it feels out of place, despite Driver's best attempts to bring some depth to his character. In all honesty, Driver's misuse is pretty much typical of most characters in Midnight Special, with no characters journey really coming to a satisfying conclusion.

Yet the disjointed storytelling isn't my only problems with this effort. While technically speaking Midnight Special is mostly very strong, the special effects are quite dismal. Now, I understand the film may not have had the biggest budget ($18,000,000 to be exact) but, to be quite frank, that is no excuse for how bad some scenes in this film come off. One shot in particular looks as though it has been pulled straight out of a "Sims" video game. And not an up-to-date version at that. Think circa 2003. Many people go to the cinema to escape reality, however this film's dodgy visual effects work took me completely out of the story Nichols and company were trying to tell, which contributed to my dislike for this film.

In conclusion, Midnight Special could have been great. Sharing similarities in plot and tone with Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", the film was built around a strong original concept and could have really been something special (pardon the awful pun). But what we ultimately get is a rushed and poorly edited story which has too many ingredients at its disposal but not enough room on the plate. Like I said, a mini-series would have served this story a lot better than a feature length. Ultimately it left me leaving the theatre caring nothing for what I'd just seen, and that is, in my opinion, one of the worst sins a film can commit. A good original concept squandered by an over-stuffed film.

Score: 5.8/10