The Midnight Sky (2020)

"The Midnight Sky," a catastrophic science-fiction tale directed by George Clooney and based on Lily Brooks-Dalton's novel "Good morning, Midnight," is about an emotional and physical journey. After a mysterious cataclysm has wiped out most of life on Earth, Augustine (George Clooney), a seriously ill astronomer who has spent his life looking for a hospitable exoplanet, refuses to escape with a group of survivors and is left alone in an Arctic scientific-research station. He knows a group of astronauts is traveling back to Earth and since he needs a powerful antenna to communicate with them, he sets off on a perilous journey to reach a far-off base.

George Clooney's performance is brilliant, and some scenes are extremely engaging and nerve-wracking. Unfortunately the movie focuses mostly on Augustine's emotional awakening and neglects important aspects of the story. Too many scenes are devoted to his journey and inner struggle and this choice affects the narrative economy of the film. Its pace is slow and its development dispiriting.

I would recommend "The Midnight Sky" to viewers fond of sentimental stories and not to those eager for action, adventure and the excitement of scientific exploration.

Fmovies: A struggle to sit through this tedious behemoth of a movie. Nothing really happens and you feel ripped off at the end. Visually engaging space shots. That's it.

Seriously I am surprised Netflix would produce something so terrible. So many holes in the plot and nothing is explained properly. What a waste of 2.5 hours of my time!

The Midnight Sky fmovies. When writing a script, a book or creating any sort of story-telling medium, every scene MUST have a purpose to further develop the plot, characters, or atmosphere.

The beginning of the movie starts well-enough. The pacing of the movie, atmosphere and the beginning of the plot is set. You fully understand what is happening and have a general idea of what challenges the protagonist might face. However, after about 30 minutes, the movie slows down. A lot.

Each and every scene thereafter is meaningless to the viewer and useless to the film director. Every challenge the characters face is short-term and has nothing to do with the overall story (oh no, I lost my luggage!) It is only until the last 12 MINUTES of the movie, does the story advance albeit very little.

After sitting through the movie for an hour and a half, I was debating on looking for another movie, but I stuck with it. If not for me, then for my readers.

Pass on this movie. It's not science fiction, but more of a B grade movie with great sci-fi visuals. I enjoy slow-paced science fiction (Interstellar, Gravity), but this is not slow-paced. It's no-paced.

It's hard to know what this movie is about or what it tried to accomplish. Most of the time you just don't have any idea of what is going on or where the story is going.

After so many great movies like Interestellar, The Martian and others, it's incredible to understand why movie studios won't hire a physicist to advise them on the science portion of the movie. Very disappointing.

More focus on the arctic journey and Augustine's past & relationship with Iris would have been been way more interesting than spending half the film (and I guess most of the budget) flying a spaceship through asteroid belts and hitting every possible scientific inaccuracy along the way.