George Clooney crosses the Arctic to save astronauts in end-of-the-world bore The Midnight Sky |
The world has been evacuated after an unspecified radiological disaster, with the survivors bound for K-23, a newly discovered moon of Jupiter capable of supporting life. The only person left on Earth is Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney), suffering from a terminal illness. He remains behind at an arctic base to warn returning space missions. The returning mission Aether – crewed by Jones, Oyelowo, Chandler, Bichir and Boone – are en route, but to make contact with them Lofthouse must travel across the arctic to a back-up transmitter, accompanied by a mysterious wordless child called Iris (Caoilinn Springall) who seems to have been left behind during the evacuation.
The Midnight Sky is the largest, most technically ambitious
film Clooney has directed. Did the focus on the technical aspects mean he took
his eye off other elements? Even the ones his previous films have been strong
on: dialogue and character. The Midnight Sky looks great and has some
impressive effects. But it is a dull film, lacking pace or energy, populated by
paper-thin characters and often feeling like a Frankenstein-like stitching
together of elements of other, much better, films.
It splits its focus between two story lines: one a survivalist
two-hander between Clooney and child actress Caroilinn Springall; the other a
“journey home against the odds” space mission. The first carries a little more
interest, if only because Clooney manages to brilliantly convey loneliness,
isolation, sadness and how terminal illness increases the effects of all of
these. There is also emotional depth from his growing bond with Iris: the two
of them playfully flicking peas at each other over dinner and his protecting
her from the dangers outside. This is shot in some stunning Iceland vistas and
shows a competent selection of various traditional survivalist set-ups during
the struggle to complete the journey. It’s not exactly original, but at least
it holds the interest.
That interest isn’t found in the space scenes – although the lack
of originality is. How did Clooney fail to notice that he assembled a terrific
cast of actors, but then failed to give them so much as a whisper of a character
to play between them. This crew are terminally unengaging 2-D characters, whose
dialogue echoes tropes of other films. Despite the dangers they encounter while
navigating a course to Earth (that inevitably takes them through uncharted
meteor storms), we are never really given a reason to really care about these
characters (all the sad mooning over holograms of the families they left behind
doesn’t actually make us feel like we know them).
The sense of nothing we are seeing here actually feeling new is
key, and the main problem with the whole film. Countless other films have
covered world-ending events. Clooney’s battle to cross the arctic and survive
carries more than an echo of The Revenant by way of The Road. The
struggles in space have lashings of Gravity with an Interstellar
vibe. And those are just for starters. Even the final narrative twist (which
you can probably see coming) echoes other film twists. For all the handsomeness
of the film, it never feels fresh, always more of a tribute remix of other
superior films that you should probably just consider rewatching instead.
That’s Clooney’s main failing here. As if he was so focused on
getting the technical elements spot on, he never checked if the patient had a
pulse. The Midnight Sky, knitted together from the offcuts of other
films, has only the vaguest of heartbeats. Nothing is original and virtually no
character in it ever feels either fully-formed or someone we care about.
Others, all too obviously, serve as nothing but narrative devices. There are
some wonderful shots and a lovely score from Alexandre Desplat. But
narratively, the film often feels too cold, distant and emotionally dead. It
ends up feeling far, far longer than its two-hour run time.
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