The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Originally posted May 29th, 2015

There are no strings on me...

My favorite part of The Avengers: Age of Ultron is a party scene.  There are no superhero costumes, no loud explosions, and no CGI effects.  The scene is about a group of very different people who have been through a lot of crazy experiences, and this is their chance to relax, hang out, and drink with each other.  It's a really fun scene, with razor-sharp writing and excellent acting all around.  If you've been following this eleven-film-long saga, this is a major payoff for you, and definitely a showcase for writer/director Joss Whedon at his most pure.

The rest of the movie is (for the most part) a good superhero team-up movie.  While the novelty of seeing all these classic characters interacting is gone for the most part, their chemistry and dynamics shine through at every turn.  The film kicks off with an extraordinarily over-the-top action scene on a snowy mountain in the poor country of Sokovia, as The Avengers have already assembled and are retrieving Loki's old scepter from evil scientists who have been experimenting with it on humans.  Two of these experiments, twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) Maximoff, have special abilities that allow them to take on the Avengers and pose a major threat.  Once the scepter is retrieved, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) a.k.a. Iron Man and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) a.k.a. the Hulk, begin experimenting with an artificial intelligence found within the gem that gives the scepter its power of mind control.  Naturally, while trying to harness the power of the A.I. (voiced by James Spader) for the good of humanity, it backfires and decides that in order to save Earth, he must destroy all humans.  It's up to the Avengers and their allies to stop Ultron before he eviscerates the entire planet's population.

Age of Ultron is well paced, with solid character development and fun action.  The balance between comedy and drama is handled nicely (like the first), and none of the main characters get totally lost in the shuffle.  In fact, the only underdeveloped character from the first film, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), gets plenty of great focus.  I've seen complaints about a love story between Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Bruce Banner, and while I admit that the actors don't have much chemistry, their reasons for wanting to be with each other are really compelling.  I'm also interested in this whole Infinity Stone thing (and I can't wait until The Avengers meet the Guardians of the Galaxy in a later film to tie everything together).  Add to that all the fun and unexpected cameos from other characters in the Marvel cinematic universe, and things are looking really good from a character perspective.

I don't want to rant about the overuse of CGI in modern movies, so all I'll say is that it actually becomes exhausting to watch so many CGI-infused action scenes.  I've heard that Age of Ultron is the most expensive film in the franchise to date and has the most digital effects, but I probably could have guess it just by looking at the thing.  There has yet to be an Incredible Hulk that doesn't move like a cartoon character during action scenes, and this is no exception.  In close-ups and slower moments (aided by motion capture) he looks fantastic, but otherwise, I just don't believe he's there.  Yes, there were moments when my jaw dropped in amazement or I got chills from a thrilling battle, but honestly, most of the action could have been cut in half and the movie would still have been enjoyable.  Imagine that last scene from the first Avengers, which was a busy, over-the-top, but very entertaining CGI showcase.  Now imagine watching it three times, buffered by expository scenes and you have some idea of how the plot flows in this movie. Meanwhile, the score by Brian Tyler and Danny FREAKING Elfman of all people manages to be somehow less memorable than Alan Silvestri's incredibly generic score from the first movie.

Pietro and Wanda are given some backstory that is supposed to make them hate Tony Stark (making them villains for the time), but their inclusion in the story is unnecessary and their motivations are flimsy. They come off as kind of stupid for helping out Ultron, and so their redemption rings a bit false.  Ultron's motivations are also muddy and his conception as a villain might make more sense if I knew anything about the comics, but I don't, so I found it needlessly unclear.  I did, however, appreciate that he has a sarcastic personality and doesn't speak with a bland, robotic monotone like I expected.

I can't help feeling a bit disappointed by the second Avengers movie, but it's still a fun ride all around.  It's a bit too long and overstuffed with characters for its own good, but it can be thrilling and funny all the same.  A stronger villain motivation would have surely bumped my score up a notch, but at the same time, it's impressive that the movie works at all.   It becomes a series of events rather than a compelling story, and even though the climax is chock-full of spectacle, it's unfortunately a bit empty, not unlike the Transformers sequels.  I saw it in IMAX 3D, and my feelings on the format remain the same: IMAX good, 3D bad.  It's still a must-see for fans of the franchise, and entertains on a number of levels.  The film focuses on action scenes rather than a story, but thankfully the characters don't get lost in the all the digital pyrotechnics.


7/10

It Follows (2015)

Originally posted April 28th, 2015

It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. 

Whatever helps it get close to you.

The best horror films reach deep inside an audience's mind and tap into their primal fears.   The unfortunate majority of studio horror movies substitute tension-killing jump scares and gratuitous amounts of gore for genuine terror and scary fun.  So when I hear good buzz surrounding a new horror movie, as I did with It Follows, I get pretty excited.  Disappointed I was not; in fact, I'll be damned if It Follows isn't the best horror movie to come out since The Conjuring (although I have yet to see The Babadook... let's just go with "best American horror movie").  Unsettling, nuanced, and horribly beautiful in too many ways to count, It Follows fulfills its promise to linger with you long after you see it.

A young, gloomy college student named Jay (Maika Monroe) lives a perfectly average life in suburbia.  She becomes cursed by her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) after having sex with him for the first time.  A person will follow her wherever she goes, walking slowly toward her until it catches up and kills her.  It can look like anyone, so Jay's guard must constantly be up.  She confides in her friends, and they try to find ways to kill the creature following her, but it seems as though the only way she can escape the curse is by having sex with someone else to pass it on.

In all honesty, I think Hitchcock and John Carpenter would have liked It Follows.  The tension and suspense are so on point and nerve-wracking that half the time I forgot I was even watching a movie.  Typically, modern horror movies have unlikable characters, nonexistent plots, and unlikable characters.  It Follows is like a defiance of all those elements; the horror comes from slow builds and intense payoffs, the plot builds and the story is constantly moving, and the characters are sympathetic.  I care about Jay, her fate, and the fate of her friends.  The rules of the curse are laid out clearly, and rather than becoming tired in the second act, it only gets more interesting and terrifying.  Because you care about the characters, you're constantly in anticipation of the creature's next appearance.  Sometimes the creature is already in the scene and you don't even know it yet. This is damn good horror movie-making.

What adds to the unsettling mood is the world the characters inhabit.  At first it appears to be modern day.  But the cars and fashion seem to be straight out of the 70s, the movies everyone watches are from the 50s (and all their televisions have rabbit ears), and one of Jay's friends has a small, electronic device that she reads books on.  Add to that the magnificent, synth-tastic music by Disasterpiece, which adds a sharp 80s flair, and you're placed in a world that's just a little off and uncomfortable in all the right ways.  I'm so tired of movies with droning, forgettable soundtracks, so listening to this intrusive and eerie score was really satisfying.

Director David Robert Mitchell has created a movie akin to experiencing a nightmare.  Drawing from the best elements of the original Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street movies, It Follows is the rare horror movie that focuses on suspense rather than gore, smart characters and a tight story instead of idiots played by models in a convoluted series of events.  The actors in It Follows give very naturalistic performances and look like real people, which means not everyone is conventionally attractive.  The world, despite how otherworldly it feels, looks lived in and authentic.  The subtext about STDs, sexual anxiety, and the fear of inevitable death add untold amounts of substance that can be picked apart and analyzed upon multiple viewings.  Despite my slight confusion about the ending (maybe I just don't get it yet), I can't say enough great things about this movie.


9/10

It Follows (2015) (Video Review)

Originally posted April 28th, 2015

Hey all you lovely people. I'm trying something new with this video review.  It's very on-the-fly and unscripted, so apologies if it lacks polish.  Hopefully I get my opinion across.  Leave a comment on how I can make them better and what you'd like to see me review.  Enjoy!

Cinderella (2015)

Originally posted March 27th, 2015

How charming... how perfectly charming...

The current decade's wave of fairy tale reimaginings has led to mostly mediocre efforts, often times borrowing major elements from the original stories without any semblance of charm and little to no heart.  Actually, let's be honest: these aren't new versions of classic fairy tales; they're riffs on classic movies based on fairy tales and old classics.  I have yet to view one of these "re-imaginings" that exceeds or even matches the originals they're capitalizing on, and unfortunately, the new Cinderella is no exception.  However, I won't deny that I still liked it.

Stop me if you've heard this one: in what seems to be the Victorian Era, Ella (Lily James) is a young woman living with her father in a gorgeous house in a thriving kingdom.  Her mother died when she was a child, and years later her father dies on a business trip.  She now contends with her horrible stepmother Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett) and selfish stepsisters (Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger).  An opportunity arises for Ella (now degraded and nicknamed "Cinderella" by her step family) to attend a ball where commoners are invited to mingle with the noblemen. Tremaine sabotages her efforts to attend, leaving her feeling truly hopeless for the first time in her life.  She gets some help from her fairy godmother (Helena Bonham-Carter), who makes her a carriage out of a pumpkin, fixes up her dress, and sets her on her way to find the prince of her dreams (Richard Madden) and escape her terrible life.

I'll be damned if that isn't beat for beat what happens in EVERY. SINGLE. CINDERELLA. STORY. But I'll also be damned if actually watching and enjoying it yet again doesn't prove just how timeless the story is.  When contrasted with its animated counterpart, there are notable elements that get a bit more fleshing out.  The loss of Ella's parents is shown to us rather than told, and Tremain's motivations are clear and easy to relate to.  There's also a nice touch of humanity given to the prince character that was missing from the original film, being that he's actually a character and all. He actually meets Ella early in the story when she doesn't know he's a prince, and it's one of the most enjoyable scenes in the movie. These changes are all well and good, but they are counterbalanced by things that the animated movie does ten times better.

The biggest emotional moment in the original is when the stepsisters brutally rip Cinderella's dress apart, leaving her (and kids in the audience) emotionally disturbed.  Maybe the classic Cinderella story gets a bad rap for its main character being too passive, but I've always seen her as an underdog.  She goes through a lot to get her happily ever after, and it's well-earned.  In the live-action version, the dress ripping scene is so subdued and brief that it hardly registers; Tremain rips the dress's shoulder and tells her it's outdated.  That's what gets Cinderella to her lowest point?  That scene needs to be an emotional gut punch, and instead it was more of a poke to the arm.  I won't spoil the ending, but I will say that it lacks the "I have the other slipper" moment that really defined the original movie, and while I appreciate the effort to not rehash the same twist, what replaces it falls a bit flat.  Add to that the lack of musical sequences, (another part of what makes the original a classic) and you're left with yet another unnecessary remake that can't hold a candle to the original.

Comparisons to the original aside, how does it stand on its own?  It's a visual stunner for sure; the costumes and sets are gorgeous, and the acting is great throughout.  Aside from a few scenes in the opening with Ella's mother (Halley Atwell, AKA Agent Freakin' Carter!), the film doesn't take on a cheesy tone, mostly because of the actors' commitment to their roles and Kenneth Branagh's spot-on direction. While her evil stepmother could never replace Eleanor Audley's Lady Tremaine, Cate Blanchett puts her own spin on the character and gives her a weightiness I wasn't expecting.

Like The Amazing Spider-Man, the new Cinderella movie tries to justify its existence by changing many little things while leaving major beats from the original intact.  That does not mean it needed to exist, but like the Spider-Man remake, the execution is just good enough to give it a pass.  Good performances across the board, a sense of fun, and a brisk pace help make Cinderella a nice "turn off your brain" kind of movie, and one that I was content to watch.  This isn't a "gritty" retelling like Snow White and the Huntsman, a disastrous misfire like Oz: The Great and Powerful, or a "villain's side of the story" like Maleficent.  This is a perfectly nice remake that, despite being 65 years older than the film it's based on, fails to be better than it or countless other Cinderella movies that have come in-between.


7/10

Jurassic Park (1993)

Originally posted June 9th, 2015

Hold onto your butts...

You can't talk about the history of visual effects without talking about Jurassic Park.  You can't talk about dinosaur movies without talking about Jurassic Park.  You can't talk about Stephen Spielberg without talking about Jurassic Park.  As it stands, it's one of the most influential movies in all of blockbuster cinema, right up there with Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.  While certainly not the first movie to use computer generated imagery, it was the first to use it extensively to create living creatures, and what better way to introduce CGI creatures to the world than with dinosaurs?  But I don't want this review to focus solely on the visuals, so I'll gush now and get it out of the way: Jurassic Park features extremely well-animated CGI, that when integrated with Stan Winston's remarkable animatronic dinosaurs, looks as mind-blowingly good today as it did in 1993.

What do they got in there, King Kong?

Based on the book by Michael Crichton (with a screenplay by David Koepp), Jurassic Park follows Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) as they are led to a mysterious island theme park by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), a billionaire who has made a remarkable breakthrough.  The couple are paleontologists, and Hammond needs endorsements to make sure the park is safe after an incident involving the death of one of its workers.  When they arrive on the island, they are stunned to discover that the park is populated by living, breathing, cloned dinosaurs.  Along with Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), a chaos theorist, and a slimy can't-wait-till-he-gets-eaten lawyer (Martin Ferrero), the group discusses the ethics involved in the park's creation and how it could change the world, for better or worse.  At the same time, Hammond's grandchildren, Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello), visit the park to get a sneak peak at the attractions while the park's computer engineer Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) puts plans in motion to steal dinosaur embryos for a rival company.  While the group is on the dino-safari, Nedry deactivates the security systems and inadvertently cuts the power, leaving everyone on the island susceptible to all manor of T-Rexes, stampeding Gallimimus, and deadliest of all, Velociraptors.

The point is, you're still alive when they start to eat you...

Spielberg's direction of tension-building and action set pieces has never been better, teasing out the reveal of the dinosaurs themselves and slowly introducing us to the world before all hell breaks loose.  Seeing the more dangerous dinosaurs safely behind electric fences might would have spoiled their reveal;  it's much scarier to see them for the first time with nothing holding them back after hearing about them so much.  Let's not forget that none of this would mean anything if the actors didn't sell it well, and they do so with flying colors.   The whole cast's naturalistic line deliveries, wide-eyed wonderment at the sight of the dinos, and genuine terror in the face of their certain death lend the movie tons of credibility.  I've seen the screenplay criticized for its lack of character development, but I'm sorry, I just don't see it.  Hammond goes through a fantastic character arc; he's a naive old man with well-intentioned delusions of grandeur at the start, but comes to understand that the world isn't his toy box.  Grant starts out as jaded and against the idea of having a family, but rediscovers his child-like sense of wonder after spending time with Tim, Lex, and some of the friendlier dinosaurs.  And it's a joy to watch Goldblum's performance as Malcolm, a man who looks like he was pulled from the beat generation and serves as an ironic commentator to the story.

You said you've got a T-Rex?

I'm not reinventing the wheel by saying that John Williams is the greatest film composer of all time, but that's my honest opinion.  If you don't have Williams' music playing in your head after you watch Jurassic Park, I hope you communicate through sign language.  The orchestral score is so memorable and grandiose that you get lost in the movie.  I can't describe it, but it just sounds like dinosaurs; it's pretty much become their theme song no matter what media they appear in.  I think it might rank as one of his top five best scores of all time.  And the sound design?  Unbelievable.  Throughout my childhood, I had only seen Jurassic Park on a tiny TV that didn't have a very high volume.  When I heard the visceral sound mix on a five-channel surround system for the first time, I couldn't stop smiling.  The ambiance, the giant footsteps, and... my god... the roars!  Creatively mixing sounds from elephants, whales, dogs, and probably half a dozen other animals, the sound mixers created an iconic T-rex roar as well as countless other hugely influential sound effects.

We're gonna make a fortune off this place.

So we've pretty much established that Jurassic Park is a technical masterpiece, but a few plot holes hold it back from being a flawless movie altogether.  For starters, there's a plot development late in the film that reveals that the dinosaurs have been breeding, despite the fact that they were bred to be female.  Grant and the kids discover this as they are wandering throughout the park, which means that none of the scientists knew this was going on.  He concludes that since some frogs can spontaneously change their sex if they are in a same-sex environment, and since frog DNA was used to help clone the dinosaurs, they must be adapting as well.  It's unrealistic that none of the scientists noticed this was going on, and even more ridiculous that they couldn't have predicted it could happen.  The themes also get a bit buried by the action in the third act the film becomes exclusively a survival story, but that's more of a nitpick than a major problem.

That's chaos theory.

Scientists going too far and creating something they can't control is a tried-and-true formula of the science-fiction genre.  That aspect of Jurassic Park isn't its most groundbreaking, but it has a hell of a lot of fun exploiting it.  Its themes are fascinating when they are juxtaposed to Jurassic Park's real-world impact on the film industry; in the film, the characters react in awe to the new dinosaurs, but then discuss the potential negative side effects.  Once the movie hit theaters, the CG effects wowed audiences, then the industry quickly overused it and does so to this day.  That, of course, doesn't hurt the film itself; the great acting, stellar music, and most importantly, the sense of fun, are the things that keeps bringing people back for more.  The action is full of tension, outclassing its imitators and enduring as one of the best suspense movies of all time.  There's something for everyone in Jurassic Park.  Kids can enjoy the dinosaurs and adults can think about the themes and appreciate the action.    Spielberg is truly a master director, and beyond its fancy looks, there really is something special about Jurassic Park.  I don't think we'd be getting a third sequel this week, twenty-two years later, if there wasn't. 

9/10

Jurassic World (2015)

Originally posted on June 17th, 2015.

There was a moment - several moments in fact - during Jurassic World, where I probably should have been angrier than I was.  This film clearly has some affection Jurassic Park, but has only passing aspirations to live up to it in any meaningful way.  But I took a deep breath, laughed it off, and continued watching.  For I had low expectations from the moment I saw the first trailer; Jurassic World was going to be a generic, nostalgia-driven cash-in on the original movie and nothing more.  Involuntarily, I started getting a little excited when I actually sat down in the theater.  Wow, I thought, A new Jurassic Park movie!  Then, during the opening few seconds, I watched as a CGI raptor baby cracked open its egg and moved with all the uncanniness of a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull groundhog.  It was precisely then that my expectations were tempered and never rose again.

It's been twenty-two years since the events of Jurassic Park.  Isla Nubar is now a fully-functioning dinosaur-populated theme park, filled with wondrous attractions but also too much corporate interference.  It seems to cost a tremendous sum to keep the place open, given that the park's developers have to keep inventing new dinosaur hybrids to attract more customers.  Their latest creation, the Indominus Rex, turns out to be more frightening and violent than the scientists had expected, and one day, it escapes its pen.  Now on a rampage, the creature kills everything in sight to assert its dominance and become master of the food chain.  Two brothers, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), happen to be vacationing at the theme park while their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park's operations manager, deals with investors instead of spending time with them.  Before the Indominus Rex even escapes, the park's raptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) has a bad feeling about all this, commenting on Claire's attitude toward the dinosaurs as attractions rather than animals.  When shit starts hitting the fan and the park is thrown into chaos, Claire seeks out Owen's help to find her nephews before they're killed by the curiously intelligent creature.

Directed by Colin Trevarrow, Jurassic World sees John Hammond's original vision for Jurassic Park realized, but dialed up to eleven.  Dinosaur safari?  Screw that! We've got self-operating hamster balls!  Holographic dinosaur movies! Impractically-sized aquatic dinosaurs!  While I think that the idea of finally seeing Jurassic Park opening and drawing in huge crowds is a fantastic idea for a sequel, I feel as though the execution in Jurassic World misses the point of the original concept; the new park seldom feels like it could be a real place.  That's a problem in a movie where I happily buy into scientists cloning dinosaurs.  And it's unfortunately not the only problem the movie faces.

Jurassic World contains enough spectacle to make the film watchable, but there's a distinct lack of effort in the screenplay.  Neither of the Jurassic Park sequels were great, so World hardly ruins a great franchise (in fact, it may objectively be the best). But I was hoping that at some point there would be some suspense to counterpoint the comedy, and it unfortunately never really emerges.  The movie is more concerned with wearing fan service on its sleeve while simultaneously making fun of itself, for better and for worse.  Making fun of obvious product placement?  Brilliant.  Making self-referential jokes while many people are dying?  Eh... we encounter some tonal dissonance.  There's a really nice meta theme running throughout the movie (intentional or not) about how dinosaurs were once an incredible thing to behold, but after all these years, people are growing bored of them.  It reminded me of how CGI effects (which Jurassic Park helped popularize) were beyond impressive when they were new, but we're actually getting bored of them now, too.

Part of the fun of a creature feature is caring about what happens to the characters when they're in danger.  But I'll be damned if I honestly didn't care who lived and died in this movie, save maybe the younger brother Zach.  Characters are either flat and unmemorable or obnoxious and unlikable, all the while making forced jokes and exhibiting no chemistry.  There's so much comedy without enough suspense to balance it out, and it makes the movie feel silly and inconsequential.  The only moment that tried to be genuinely terrifying was the pterodactyl attack, and as a result, it's probably the best scene in the movie.  I must admit to geeking out at some of the references to the original movie.  I won't spoil them here (though I'll bet you can't spot Ian Malcom's book just barely in focus in an early scene), seeing as some of them are a welcome surprise.  The only returning cast member is B.D. Wong as Dr. Wu, and while it's great to see him back and delivering a good performance, he's way underused.  How great would it have been to see him return as a full-fledged villain?  Instead we get a villain in Vic Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), and the less we talk about him, the better.

Technically speaking, the film is well-paced and some of the visuals are amazing, but there is an over-reliance on CGI.  I would have loved to see some dinosaur animatronics (and there are a scant few) mixed with the CG to really sell some of the close-ups, but alas, the Stan Winston is no more, and his invaluable love for prosthetics and animatronics is sorely missing from modern Hollywood efforts.  The dinosaurs often look blurry and muddy, like cartoons or video game creatures.  I seldom felt like I could reach out and touch them.  The use of the classic Jurassic Park theme music is also bafflingly mishandled.  I'm glad it was used at all by Michael Giacchino (who I love very, very much), but over a kid's shoes?  Seriously?

Steven Spielberg himself said when he was making a movie about dinosaurs being brought back to life in modern times, you need to inject humor for anyone to take it seriously.  That might seem like a contradictory statement, but it's a subtle way of letting the audience know that the concept may be ridiculous, but you're gonna have a good time anyway.  Jurassic World takes that idea and runs with it, but it doesn't populate its story with enough suspense or intelligent characters to give it any weight.  The movie is pretty funny at points, but it's groan-inducing at others.  There are a few awe-inspiring visuals, but they often support concepts that are too over-the-top to make me believe that any of this could actually exist.  You have DINOSAURS, people!  Don't throw interactive holograms that don't exist in my face if you want me to drool over the dinosaurs later!

6/10

Midnight Special (spoilers) (2016)

Midnight Special is the rare sci-fi film that treats its audience with immense respect.  There's a deliberate pensiveness to the film that goes against nearly all modern trends; it never bombards the audience with exposition or plot; it instead seeks to intrigue and make the audience demand more.  Jeff Nichols (Mud) serves as writer and director, and it's clear from the start that Midnight Special opts for the feel of an indie film rather than a Hollywood spectacle despite its Spielbergian influences.  There are long stretches with no dialogue, scenes that give us more questions than answers, and a constant air of urgency despite the relatively slow pace.  It tries to instill awe in its audience, and I'd say it mostly gets there.  While its story appears simplistic initially, there are actually numerous complex themes to discover once you start looking for them.

The film centers around a young boy named Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher), who has a powerful gift.  He has the power to show people a wonderful place and give them immense joy, almost like a living drug. Subjected to worship by a religious cult in Texas called the Ranch, Alton is saved by his father Roy (Michael Shannon) and his friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton), and are subsequently chased across the country by the FBI.  Alton, growing ever-weaker, needs to get to a location in Florida, burned in his head for an unknown reason, as soon as possible.  Along the way, they stop at the home of Alton's mother Sarah (Kirstin Dunst), avoid a meteorite shower at a gas station, and are nearly stopped altogether by an FBI communications analyst named Sevier (Adam Driver).  Alton eventually discovers that the sunlight (which previously gave him intense pain) is actually what gives him strength, and that his gifts are the result of him not belonging this world.

Some of the strongest parts of Midnight Special are in that first half hour, before we know a lick of what's going on.  The mystery builds, tensions rise, and we're introduced to the characters purely through situations.  There are shocking moments of violence littered throughout the otherwise subtle narrative, which gives them weight and purpose.  There's a sense of grounded reality to the characters' reactions and interactions, and the production reflects that with its very lived-in nature and first-person perspective to much of the spectacle.  It gives us a sense that we're experiencing every moment with the characters, making the story involving even when we don't fully understand what's happening (the gas station meteor shower undoubtedly being the film's best moment).

I would say that while the film is extremely well-acted, the characters aren't especially lovable (save for maybe Lucas) and we don't get inside their heads nearly enough.  This is especially problematic when it comes to Alton, who doesn't seem happy, upset, or much of anything as he's whisked away from the cult by his father and taken on this crazy adventure.  What does he think of having powers?  Is he sad that he has to leave his parents?  What was their relationship like before all this?  On top of that, his most transformative moment happens offscreen, and he tells the other characters about it later (and after all that time without forced expository dialogue no less!)  It all feels just a bit underdeveloped, which collides with the Spielbergian tone the film takes on at times.  Elliot in E.T. is flawed and emotional, Roy from Close Encounters of the Third Kind is determined and charismatic.  Sadly, none of the characters in Midnight Special were able to get under my skin and make me feel anything.

What I find more impressive is the way that the movie handles its themes.   Due to the strong visual sensibilities of the film (it's gorgeously shot by the way) and non-reliance on explanations, the audience can draw their own conclusions about what the film means.  I see it as a parable for smart, misunderstood kids who grow up in small towns, but eventually leave to pursue college, work in the city, etc.  At the end of the film, we see a parallel world that Alton needs to become a part of, and it shines like a futuristic metropolis.  He leaves behind his small, rural town to use his talents somewhere else, even though it means saying goodbye to his parents.  As I mentioned, it could have been more emotional, but it's still a well-crafted moment that echoes the notion that eventually, children have to leave the nest.  Other themes I picked up on center around children in cults, familial bonds, and addiction.  I always appreciate strong themes in genre pictures, mostly because without them, the spectacle is empty.

That's my long-winded way of saying that I respect Midnight Special, and greatly enjoy parts of it, I can't bring myself to love it.  With a firmer grasp on its characters, it might have achieved greatness; but mere goodness is nothing to scoff at.  Its mystery is executed with a fantastic, timeless atmosphere, it features haunting visuals helmed by cinematographer Adam Stone, and a beautiful, subtle musical score by David Wingo.  The actors are fantastic, and commit fully to their unglamourous, grounded roles so fully that I don't think they're even wearing make-up.  So it may not  be at Spielberg levels, but that's an ambition many have strived for and achieved (at least as far as movies go; Stranger Things knocked it out of the park).  Midnight Special is an overlooked gem, and in a cinematic landscape that's sorely lacking in smart, sophisticated sci-fi, that's a darn shame.

7/10