The Midnight Skye
starring George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demian Bichir, Kyle Chandler and Caoilinn Springall
screenplay by Mark L. Smith
directed by George Clooney
Rating: ♦♦♦◊◊
Based on Good Morning, Midnight, a debut novel by American Lily Brooks-Dalton (Random House, 2016), the film ought to have been much better than it was. I mean, it was okay. But only that. Set in the year 2049, it had great potential to b e a dystopian, apocalyptic science fiction thriller, until it fell short by 1) an overly slow pace, and 2) lack of sufficient plot exposition. George Clooney plays Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist who chooses to remain in his Arctic research station after everyone else evacuates south during a planet-engulfing extinction level environmental catastrophe. The main problem I have with the film is that this catastrophe is never explained. That by itself could be the whole movie right there. We are never told why deadly ionizing radiation is slowly engulfing the planet. Is it because of nuclear war? Some human or natural environmental disaster? Is it a disaster of terrestrial or extra-terrestrial origin? Why does the radiation originate in the south and is slowly creeping north. Why is the Arctic safer for a longer period than more southerly latitudes? We don’t know. Presumably the writer and Clooney as the director felt that an explanation wasn’t needed because the meat of the story lay in the human drama unfolding. But I thought two entire movies could be forged from this material. One film could pursue the space exploration theme, while another could be devoted just to the planetary disaster theme. Pursuing both themes in one story weakened both of them simultaneously.
Professor Lofthouse devoted his life searching the cosmos for a habitable planet. He found one in K-23, one of the moons of Jupiter. A human crew was sent there on a craft called the Aether and they are now returning to Earth unaware of the disaster consuming the planet, and unable to communicate with Earth. They can’t communicate with Earth because everyone on Earth is dead, but they don’t know it yet. From his research station, Dr. Lofthouse is the last man able to send and receive transmissions. As the Aether nears the planet, Lofthouse establishes communication and explains the situation. Some of the crew decide to take an escape pod back to the Earth’s surface to search for their families, which the last two - male and female - opt to return to K-23 to start humanity anew on a new world.
I really wish The Midnight Sky had more in it to grab my interest. Sure, it was interesting. But not that interesting.