The Midnight Sky

George Clooney confirms that Santa Clause has left the pole.

(2020) Science Fiction (Netflix) George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Caoilinn Springall, Kyle Chandler, Demiån Bichir, Tiffany Boone, Sophie Rundle, Ethan Peck, Tim Russ, Miriam Shor, Lilja Nott Karlsdottir, Ątli Oskar Fjalarsson, Eden Hayhurst, Jamie Schneider, Eysis Clarken, Sam Bond, Tia Bannon, Olivia Noyce, Kishore Bhatt, Natasha Jenssen, Sarah Guerin. Directed by George Clooney

 

Hope is a double-edged sword. Sometimes it’s all that keeps us going in the face of terrible odds; but as it can motivate us to greater things, it can destroy us when it is crushed inside us.

Augustine (Clooney) is an astronomer who is the last remaining researcher at a polar observatory. The rest of the crew were evacuated back home, where an unspecified disaster overtook them and the rest of the human race. Augustine himself didn’t leave because he essentially has nowhere else to go, and besides, he has a serious illness which he is self-treating with periodic transfusions which he administers himself.

He makes a couple of discoveries; one, a NASA spaceship – the Aether – is returning from an exploratory mission to Jupiter’s moons to see if a newly discovered Jovian moon is potentially habitable by humans. Thee good news is that the answer is YES) but the bad news is that they have no idea what has happened back home and should they attempt to land, the crew will all fall victim to the same thing that decimated the population of their home.

The other thing Augustine discovers is that a little girl, whom he names Iris (Springall) – after a drawing of the selfsame flower that she gives him – has apparently been left behind after the evacuation. She seems to be mute, but perhaps that’s just as well. Augustine knows that she is now his responsibility, as he can’t very well send her into the death zone and there’s nobody else there. However, he has to warn off the Aether and in order to do that, he has to get a bigger antenna (oh, save your jokes people – this is a family site) and in order to do that, he has to hike to a different site through a winter storm. Meanwhile, the Aether has problems of its own; the Commander’s (Oyelowo) girlfriend (Jones) is pregnant, and they are about to head through an uncharted meteor debris field with their communications array and radar equipment in need of repair which will require a dangerous spacewalk.

Clooney, who up to now has steered clear of effects-heavy films, actually proves to have a pretty good eye for them. The asteroid sequence is pretty thrilling and while the Aether has been accurately described elsewhere as a “baroque Christmas ornament filmed by Stanley Kubrick” (thanks, Variety) the space sequences are fairly realistic.

One of the problems with the film is that there are some holes in logic; for example, we have developed the technology to send a manned mission to Jupiter and equip it with an impressive VR technology, but back on good ol’ earth the technology doesn’t look much evolved beyond what we already have. Does. Not. Compute.

Still, Clooney tackles a role that he doesn’t often take on and he does a great job with it, particularly in the pathos-filled climax. There are three ongoing stories being told here; what’s going on with Augustine, what’s going on aboard the Aether and flashbacks to the past. Clooney as a director has the skill to weave them all together and tie everything up in a neat little bow by movie’s end.

The problem is that there aren’t any really fresh ideas here in terms of the story. It feels like the movie was assembled Frankenstein-style from the parts of a lot of other movies – some better than this one, some not so much. The movie lacks something fresh to it that sci-fi fans tend to crave, although an interesting watch party game could be concocted with a bingo card made up of different sci-fi movies that one checks off when something from that movie shows up onscreen in this one. Make sure you have Gravity, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar all on your game card if you decide to play.

Although this was always meant to be a Netflix film, this might well have been a Holiday tentpole in gentler times. It’s a shame some of the effects won’t have the advantage of being shown on a theater screen, maybe even a premium IMAX or equivalent screen (worth the admission alone for the asteroid sequence). For home entertainment purposes, it is a bit slow-moving and has some Deep Ideas to its credit, but still makes for interesting viewing if you’re of a mind to Netflix and chill and you are into some cerebral science fiction.

REASONS TO SEE: Clooney gives a strong performance. The special effects are pretty good.
REASONS TO AVOID: Feels cobbled together from a lot of other sci-fi films.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity and a few bloody images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie that Augustine is watching is On the Beach, which stars Gregory Peck whose grandson Ethan plays a younger Augustine.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/17/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 52% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: IO
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Some Kind of Heaven

Galaxy Quest

Whatever you do, just don't order the lobster!

(1999) Science Fiction (DreamWorks) Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, Robin Sachs, Patrick Breen, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, Justin Long, Jeremy Howard, Caitlin Cullum, Corbin Bleu, Rainn Wilson. Directed by Dean Parisot

 

Heroes aren’t what they used to be. These days they shoot first and ask questions later (assuming they ask any questions at all) and would kick your patootie just as soon as look at you. As a matter of fact, they’ll kick you in the rear before they even look at you – anti-social is the new sociable. The people we admire are, for the most part, thugs with attitudes. They just don’t make ’em like Commander Peter Quincy Taggert (Jason Nesmith) anymore.

OK, “Galaxy Quest” wasn’t the best-made TV show ever. And yes, the writing was frequently downright ludicrous, substituting jargon and technobabble in place of actual dialogue. And yes, for the most part, the fans are pimply dweebs who substitute endless discussions of minutiae from the canceled TV series in place of appreciable lives.

And it’s true that the new age mantras uttered by Dr. Lazarus (Sir Alexander Dane) tend to inspire hysterical laughter rather than rational self-examination. But for my part, Lt. Tawny Madison (Gwen DeMarco) can burn my thrusters anytime.

It must be said that historical documents never lie; when actual aliens recruit the long-in-the-tooth and out-of-work actors to get them out of a jam, it’s quite a hoot. That this alien race had built their ENTIRE CULTURE on broadcast transmissions of a mostly-forgotten TV show is mind-boggling. You’d think they’d have had the sense to use “Babylon 5” instead; all I can say is, it’s good they didn’t use “The Brady Bunch.”

I will grant you that the true-life video of the cast’s adventures on far-off planets is far niftier than the low-tech five-and-dime special effects of the TV show. However, it’s a negative that the events somewhat suspiciously parallel the plot of episode 28, “The Conquering Lobster.” That’s the one where Taggart is kidnapped by Tyrosians to command their Battle Cruiser against Sartog, the Crustacean-like alien general. How life imitates art.

Okay okay, I know that the whole “TV show” thing was part of the movie and that Nesmith (Allen), Dane (Lazarus) and Madison (Weaver) don’t exist, but oh man they should have. This is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, a movie I have watched over and over again over the past decade. While it parallels a Star Trek fan fiction story I read ages ago (in which the actors playing the crew of the Enterprise were in a freak accident beamed aboard the actual starship and had to figure out how to get home), the movie is Saturday Afternoon matinee fun. The cast seems to be having an enormously good time (particularly Rickman who gets to lampoon some of his more serious colleagues) and Allen makes for a likably heroic captain…and I would watch Sigourney Weaver standing at a bus stop for two hours, let alone a movie like this.

This was also one of Rockwell’s early rolls and shows his comic versatility which has served him well since. The world of GalaxyQuest is a simple one and a sweet one, a world of geeky kids who have to interrupt their mission to save the valiant crew from certain death to take out the trash, a world of comic book conventions, store openings and personal appearances.  I like this world and return to it whenever I can.

WHY RENT THIS: Fun in a Saturday Afternoon vein. Spoofs 80s sci-fi TV with respect and love. Cast seems to be having a great time.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Might be a bit too geeky for you.

FAMILY MATTERS: There is some violence (mostly of a cartoon variety), a few bad words here and there and a bit of sexuality, some of it interspecies.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: General Sarris is named for film critic Andrew Sarris who once savaged one of producer Mark Johnson’s films; the NSEA Protector‘s serial number is NTE 3120 – the NTE standing for “Not the Enterprise.”

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: There was a second DVD release in 2009; missing from it is the Omega-13 DVD feature and the Thermian language track (which you won’t be able to listen to for very long). However, there is a rap video Sigourney Weaver did that is hysterical and the video is considerably cleaned up from the 2009 release.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $90.7M on a $45M production budget; the movie broke even.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Vincere