Movie Review: The Midnight Sky
13th January 2021
Copyright: Netflix
George Clooney, somehow, has convinced producers and companies that he can direct.
They bend on a whim to the slightest bit of creativity that lingers at his fingertips, and often leap on a product that feels muddled, unfinished and devoid of quality.
Suburbicon was a mismatch, a bold endeavour that not even writing from The Coen Brothers could save. With the well of finance drying up quicker than expected after that dud, Clooney turns his charming, coffee-promoting smile to the good people of Netflix. The Midnight Sky is the product, with Clooney directing and starring his way through a dreary drama just in time to ruin Christmas.
With character tropes right out of the jaded and dying elderly hero handbook, The Midnight Sky offers annoyingly boring moments throughout.
Nothing here sparks either interesting conversation or unique filmmaking. An experienced man in front and behind of the camera, Clooney looks to offer no hope of originality, just the usual rigamarole of alcoholism, with notions of dying individuals looking to better the remaining fragments of humanity whilst heroically sacrificing themselves.
Clooney’s direction would suggest that this is enough to make an emotive protagonist, but he misses the mark entirely.
Instead, audiences will find themselves glued to an emotionless husk that dribbles commonplace dialogue out of his mouth between sips of whisky.
Supporting cast members fare no better, even if they do try and mix in some talent occasionally.
Something about discovering a new planet, some other bits and pieces about the inevitable heat and radiation death of the universe, all the usual stuff slotted in, between bouts of Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo panicking, whilst Clooney swigs another whisky and smacks some buttons on his keyboard.
Typical moments of emotionally manipulative nonsense that have neither the heart or competence necessary to carry them off, The Midnight Sky clutches at palatable ideas, but fumbles them so poorly.
Draining in every sense of the word, the lack of quality found throughout The Midnight Sky is cause for concern.
Clooney rummages through the box of clichés and comes up with nothing audiences haven’t seen before. He’d have lost his touch if he’d had one in the first place.
A muted regimen of absolutely nothing at all, the experience is as empty as the desolate tundra that surrounds this leading man.
Riven with generic tensions and lacking actual sustenance, The Midnight Sky is, like most other Netflix releases, a complete waste of time. An inexcusable squandering of resources that could’ve been placed into other, talented hands.
