It has many intriguing elements, but it ultimately feels undercooked. That's been my problem with Jeff Nichols all along. Mud is probably my favorite, because it's his most straightforward. His other three films have great concepts, but never amount to much. Midnight Special is his worst so far. It's so vague in its sci-fi concepts - honestly, it's more of a fantasy than a sci-fi, just because it's so vague and more magical than sciency - that I quickly stopped caring. And its characters are even more shallow than its story. To me, it almost feels like all the characters were filmed separately and then combined digitally later on. They all seemed to be reading Nichols' blank dialogue past each others' heads. The lead kid is awful, Michael Shannon gives the exact same performance he gives in all of Nichols' films, and Edgerton and Dunst feel about the same. Only Adam Driver felt like he somewhat resembled a human being, but only resembled. There's some particularly neat looking stuff to see in the finale, but, since neither the story nor the characters had any depth, my whole feeling was, "Who the heck cares?" Well, some people obviously do, but not me.
Review of Midnight Special
