Originally published July 2017

Midnight Special is a strange movie. It's nothing so abstract that it feels like you're watching an artistic form of an acid trip, like House from the 1960s. It has a structure with story arcs. It has characters who have their own ambitions. These arcs and characters intersect with one another to create a drama of intensity. So on the surface, it seems like a perfectly normal movie with average characters who happen to be caught up in some supernatural business. Unfortunately for me, I don't really get it.

This will be extra quick on the review side because, frankly, I couldn't really tell you much about what happened in Midnight Special, or why. The movie explains it, sure, but its explanations don't feel earned. As a result, the movie's big set pieces and surprises didn't really do much for me. By the time it was over, all I could do was shrug my shoulders in confusion.

Pros

• Good acting from a varied cast; a lot of people looking frightened or worried

• Lighting and effects are cool

• Some interesting camera work

Cons

• Plot doesn't really explain itself

• Certain character arcs just sort of end abruptly

• It feels like one plot device after another

• Movie breaks its own rules at some point

Plot & Thoughts

Midnight Special follows the story of a father who abducted his son from some weird mid-western religious cult that was worshiping him as the harbinger of the apocalypse. Weird as that sounds, you can understand why they would think that because the boy does indeed have supernatural powers. What are they? Well, it's not really clear. Light shoots out from his eyes. Walls of residential homes collapse. Maybe some meteors fall from the sky too? Who knows? What we do know is that the boy is special and that his father (Michael Shannon) is driven to get his son to a destination, as though fulfilling a destiny.

That's about all I can say about the plot without treading into spoiler territory. The problem I have with Midnight Special is that it answers only about a third of the questions I had. It didn't have to answer all of them, but I was unclear about the motivations of many of the characters, including the dad. People were just so determined to help this boy get somewhere because he could shoot light from his eyes? I ended up understanding the antagonistic forces of the movie more than the heroes. Even when things were explained and wrapped up in the conclusion, I didn't feel like I understood the movie any better than when I started it.

By the time Midnight Special was done, I felt like a lot of it was pointless. Other characters who had their own motivations for seeking the boy came and went suddenly, with minimal consequence. There were moments where the movie establishes the rules of the boy and his powers, then decides to break those rules, as though that's supposed to have an emotional impact on the audience. Maybe I missed a lot of the nuance that went into the storytelling of Midnight Special. It might have been the fact that I was on my second airplane coming back from Europe when I watched it, so I was too tired to catch the important subtleties of everything. I just didn't get anything out of the drama that was happening because I didn't really understand the point of any of it.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

This was probably one of my shortest reviews for a movie on DagonDogs.com, but that's because I don't have much I can say about Midnight Special. For other people to enjoy it, it's best not to spoil any of the big events or details. That being said, I couldn't explain much of it if I tried and I didn't enjoy it much. Midnight Special is probably not a bad movie, per se, but I'll be the first to admit that I didn't get it. I was confused, irritated, and apathetic towards the plight of the protagonists as I waited for an explanation.

Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments!

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