Review: 'The Midnight Sky'
Zahra Anjum
Staff Writer
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The Midnight Sky was released December 23rd on Netflix, starring George Clooney, Felicity Jones, and Caoilinn Springall.
Critics from WallStreetJournal.com said, “Mr. Clooney and his colleagues have crafted an elegant screen vision of a novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton with a resonant performance at its center- his own."
I can definitely agree with the critics because this movie was heartwarming. During its release, the movie was number 1 in Netflix’s ranking for movies and got a 5.6/10 on IMDb.com.
The movie is about a scientist named Augustine Lofthouse (Clooney) who goes on an adventure with a young castaway named Iris (Springall) to warn a crew of astronauts about the conditions on Earth and to warn them about returning home. The crew of astronauts were on a mission in space and, while they were gone, a global catastrophe happened which caused many people to flee their homes. The crew of astronauts are on a spaceship called Aether who were sent on an exploration of Jupiter’s habitable moon K-23 that Lofthouse himself discovered. The crew is made up of 5 astronauts named Sully, Adewole, Mitchell, Maya, and Sanchez. Without knowing what is going on with Earth, they all long to return home.
Augustine and Iris take the resources they have from the research facility and they go to the location where their is a stronger antenna to contact Aether. Iris is a young girl that is very mysterious and doesn’t talk much. Her friendship with Augustine is heartwarming and their connection is what makes the movie more entertaining. Sully (Jones) is an astronaut who deeply cares about her mission and helping humankind. Her acting in the movie is amazing and she plays her role very well.
Commander Adewole also called Ade is played by David Oyewolo who is the head of the astronaut crew on Aether and is a brilliant mathematician. His leadership skills in the movie with the rest of the crew is inspiring to watch and learn from. Mitchell played by Kyle Chandler is one of the astronauts who is shown in the movie to have great flying and piloting skills. He is shown as a person who deeply cares about his loved ones.
Tiffany Boone, who plays Maya, is another one of the astronauts on Aether who is shown to care about her family and her crewmates. She is the one with less experience as an astronaut and tries to do her best to keep up with the rest of her fellow crewmates.
Sanchez, played by Demián Bichir, is part of the astronaut crew on Aether who cares about the rest of his fellow astronauts and is shown to have a fondness for music. His bond with Maya (Boone) makes the movie more interesting. He treats her like his own family and it shows how the astronauts are all really close with each other.
The movie takes place in 2049 is set two in main locations,the Arctic and space. This surprisingly made the movie more thriving because of the fact that these are very quiet places in reality, so showing these two areas made the movie more believable.
I enjoyed the mystery in the movie because it makes you want to watch more. There were some parts that were disappointing and a bit confusing to understand. The ending left me wondering what would happen, which in this case, had both a negative and positive effect. However, besides that, the movie was interesting to watch. The plot twists throughout the movie were definitely the best parts. The flashbacks also were wonderful because they gave a better explanation and understanding on what was happening with the characters.
The moral of the movie is that you should always be grateful for the time you have and to not waste time because you never know when it could end. The movie got a 52% rating on rottentomatoes.com and a 49% rating from Google Users. I would rate the movie as 7.5/10 because it was an exciting movie, but it could have been better. I would recommend this movie for anybody who wants to watch a sci-fi, different, and mysterious movie.