George Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky,” like “Monuments Men” before it – chokes on a combination concept and a casting slam dunk.
In 2049 the Earth is being enveloped by suffocating radiation. Space expeditions have desperately tried to find a new home for the human race.
While a large majority of the population have retreated to underground refuges to ‘hopefully’ wait out this extinction event, a dying scientist Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney) remains above ground to communicate with the last returning space expedition Aether.
The crew – a terrific yet laid back ensemble including David Oyelowo, Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, Tiffany Boone – are returning from our species salvation, Jupiter’s moon K23.
There’s so much, conceptually, to like about “The Midnight Sky.” Do you like survivalist films? Yes. Do you warm to bleak end of the world scenarios? Oh yes. Do you crave perilous ensemble space missions that almost guarantee that grizzly (and inventive zero gravity) death for the crew members? Why yes, I thoroughly enjoy that. “The Midnight Sky” is all and none of those things.
Much of the viewing experience is reverse-engineering its influences and slipping into wistful daydreams of better movies. When you see a view of the Earth from space, you hear echoes the bleak certainty of Zak Hilditch’s “These Final Hours”. When Augustine (Clooney) ventures into the hostile blizzard on the tundra you recall the existential brutality of Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey.”
When you meet the crew of the Aether space expedition you uneasily feel like you’re in for Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine”. Unfortunately for Clooney, a resume that includes working on two great space/survival films – Steven Soderbergh’s “Solaris” and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” – almost guarantees comparisons.
We begin in a frantic exit, a horde of Arctic researchers and their families in retreat. Clooney’s Augustine refuses to take refuge underground; the warning task and his impending demise (cancer treatments are required daily) hoping that he’ll be able to warn returning explorers particularly the crew from K23.
The best elements of “The Midnight Sky” happen in the opening part of the film. As Augustine sees the encroaching cloud of radiation, he braves venturing toward the edge. Wildlife writhes and sputters in its final moments. Augustine’s prognosis is as dire as the planet, riddled with unforgiving cancer.
There are moving, beautifully stark shots in the abandoned structures show signs of life that once occupied this space. In 2020 if anyone returned to a kind of corporate existence, you experienced the vacancy in a new socially distanced reality. In the deafening silences of these spaces, with surface life extinction encroaching, one can’t help to begin to project feelings that a localised ‘survivalist madness’ is imminent.
The use of flashbacks in “The Midnight Sky” do something refreshing. Rather than forcing the audience to contend with a digitally de-aged George Clooney, we enjoy the refreshing recast with a twist.
“The Midnight Sky” casts Ethan Peck (Spock for you “Star Trek Discovery” fans) as young Augustine, and utilises the “Greystoke” technique to dub the voice of the performance with a digitally altered of Clooney’s voice. In “Greystoke” Andy McDowell was dubbed over by Glenn Close because her look as Jane suited and her glorious Southern accent did not.
The voice alteration does jolt, but it helps bridge this strapping reimagined Clooney of the past with this decaying and bewildered man we see before us. The more we visit Augustine’s history, the more we understand why he’s so entangled with the Jupiter mission’s success (and saying too much more with most definitely be a spoiler).
The returning Aether space expedition is the most frustratingly pedestrian element of the film. It’s always fun to ‘sticky beak’ through a spaceship, but the Aether mission is cut from the cloth of “The Martian” ship – preferring a NASA approved/endorsed utilitarian approach rather than taking creative liberties.
Oyelowo’s Adewole and Jones’ Sully are beyond co-workers. These parents to be are the most responsible ones on the surface, but the relationship is cardboard and the characters are robotic cyphers – it’s hard to know if this apathy is intended. The fraternal chemistry of Chandler’s Mitchell and Bichir’s Sanchez is vastly more fun with the former injecting 50% more charm into every scene just because he can.
Boone’s under-utilised Maya finds comfort in the holographic memories of her friends on Earth, which resonates beautifully. Rather than faking camaraderie, it’s nice to see this young woman of colour seek comfort in her people which this crew of older people with different backgrounds cannot replicate.
Still, one can’t help but feel detached as the mission doesn’t seem to register any significant psychological mileage on the crew despite the ever-present possibility that humans have destroyed this planet once and for all.
In so many respects “The Midnight Sky” entices you to wait through, hoping and assuming, that it’s going to be worth the watch. Ultimately, in the age of streaming, the best the filmmakers can hope for is apathy.