Midnight Special

So if you can't tell, I've really been in the mood for movies with some kind of science fiction edge to it, and some kind of inkling towards the supernatural. I also seem to have an inkling towards Kirsten Dunst for some reason...

Midnight Special has a little bit of all of that.

Midnight Special is a movie that went under the radar for a lot of people, including myself for the most part. It came out in March, about the same time as Batman v Superman, and it had a very limited release and a very limited budget. I understand why this movie got the publicity that it got and

why it didn't really receive that huge of a reception. However, I do think that this movie is a hidden gem of 2016 that I think more people need to check out.

Midnight Special follows the story of a young boy named Alton Meyer (played by Jaeden Lieberher). Alton has special abilities that are coveted by a religious cult as well as sought after by the federal government because of his inexplicable knowledge of government secrets without even hacking or getting onto a computer. But Alton is taken by his father Roy (played by Michael Shannon) and the two of them, including Roy's friend Lucas (played by Joel Edgerton) are off avoiding the police, the fundamentalists, and any other obstacle that comes in their way.

Along the way we are introduced to a Special Agent Paul Seiver (played by Adam Driver) as he tries to decode the presence of Alton and assist the government in their search for the young boy. I would

say that Seiver is a bad guy in this film, but that's not actually the case. Instead, he becomes more of a curious observer with the task of assisting the government in their interest in Alton, and in a way he's almost a vehicle for the audience to investigate this whole situation through.

There are a couple of influences that I think Midnight Special borrowed a little bit of their movie from. One one hand, its very much a science fiction film with a lot of homages to Steven Spielberg films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET. But at the same time, the movie focuses on the father and the lengths he will go to save his son. So in that case, it has a very dramatic feel to it, something that I could maybe compare to The Road or something like that. If you think that this movie might just be a cool superhero movie because the kid has special abilities, you're going to be disappointed because that's not what this movie is about.

I think that Midnight Special goes in ebbs and flows when you're talking about times when that Science Fiction element and the drama meld together and when it doesn't. Sometimes the action, the science fiction feeling, and the dramatic pull of Roy and Alton is really good. And sometimes it gets a little bit slow. I think its more good melding than slow times, but there were a couple of times where I wasn't as engrossed in the movie as I think I could have been.

Something I really appreciated about the film was that it started pretty much right where the action picks up. It didn't try to introduce the characters or the situation too far back or in flashbacks. The first thing you see is them on the run and everything that happened before is explained through conversation during the movie. It was a different take on the film and I appreciated the different approach. I think there was an element of that approach that they might have missed out on because at the beginning of the film, I thought they were going to try and maybe balance the audience's perception of who is actually the good guy and who are the bad guys.

The movie opens up to an amber alert saying that Alton Meyers has gone missing and that he was abducted by Roy. With a set up like that, I thought they were going to make the audience question if Roy is actually a good guy and whether or not he is actually the best person Alton needs to be with. That however is not really not much of a question. Roy and Lucas are always assumed to be the good guys and the government and the fundamentalists are supposed to be the bad guys. I think that might have been a part of the movie they might have missed out on.

The cast of course is really good. I am really starting to enjoy Michael Shannon in everything that he is in and the same goes for Joel Edgerton. These two have been very consistent in their performances and every movie I have seen them in in the past few years has been very good and even if it isn't, they are the shining stars of the movie. Michael Shannon's character used to be apart of a cult and you can see that based on his appearance and his performance. He knows a little bit more about Alton and you can understand it because he's his father. Edgerton on the other hand is a little bit more of the observer there along for the ride. They have the same goal but they have different outlooks on the situation.

Adam Driver is funny because he has a very funny voice that I have no associated directly with Kylo Ren from Star Wars. So when he does a movie like this, I can't totally take him seriously if he's not directly threatening any other characters and telling them about the power of the dark side. However, he does a pretty good job at being apart of the antagonist organization but not really a bad guy in actuality. He provides a bookworm type to sit there in amazement as this kid does incredible things.

And then we can talk about the kid. Now I did just watch the first season of Stranger Things so I think my perception of child acting is a little bit swayed. This kid was okay but he never felt like a kid to me. He was just a little angel child. And as you watch the movie, you can understand why that is, however he doesn't come off as a kid at all. Its not a huge complaint based on the backstory, all I'm saying is he was not the highlight of this movie when his eyes were normal.

He does a very good job at starring into the abyss and he also does a good at acting strange when he's required to. The kid just didn't really stick with me at the end of the day. I'm writing this a couple days after watching the movie and Michael Shannon and Adam Driver are the ones that stick out more.

And then there's Kirsten Dunst... she's just kind of there. Not bad, not good, just there.

Overall, Midnight Special is, in my opinion, not a perfect movie, but I still consider it a diamond in the rough that is also a hidden gem from 2016. I think with the limited budget this movie was provided, I think this movie did really great things and it actually is a pretty interesting movie. I think it has a pretty good cast and actually is visually appealing. Its not going to knock your socks off, but I think it is worth checking out.

But those are my thoughts on Midnight Special. Let me know what you think of the film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Michael Shannon is just always on the edge of crazy and falling asleep. Which one is it? Who knows? Here's a kind of weird video of him with a adorable things. Enjoy!