If you haven’t seen Jeff Nichols’ “Midnight Special” yet, not only are you missing out on one of the best films of 2016 so far, but you’re also missing out on the opportunity to check out a movie where Hollywood spectacle and smart character work are not mutually exclusive. Nichols’ fourth feature film is a tense, creepy, beautiful sci-fi chase movie indebted to both John Carpenter’s “Starman” and Steven Spielberg‘s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” that much we’ve heard plenty of already. “Midnight Special” is also, however, a movie about a father and a son, as well as a movie about a hard man in search of a family and a mother figure who feels left behind by her child. Even Adam Driver’s requisite government egghead — the kind who always pops up in movies like this, and who used to be played by Jeff Goldblum — is a kind, recognizably empathetic human being with desires and flaws that exist outside of the plot.
The grounded, humanistic tone of “Midnight Special” is a major part of the movie’s success. When balls of fire reign down from the night sky to lay a roadside gas station to waste in the movie’s most arresting set piece, Nicholas makes sure the impact is visceral, immediate. There is weight to the action. Too many of today’s action and sci-fi pictures are noticeably bereft of weight: more often than not, they are joyless over-plotted slogs, often splitting the difference between “gritty” and “naturalistic” tones and the more overtly cartoonish vibe practiced by the Marvel movies and their ilk.
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The essay also brings up an interesting point in this regard, which is the sensitive and thoughtful depiction of the collateral damage caused by the characters in the film. Several action movies, in the wake of 9/11, have used that national tragedy to color the action of their stories (the newer Batman movies are the first example that comes to mind, mainly “The Dark Knight Rises” and the opening sequence of “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”). And yet, too often, in films like Michael Bay’s “Transformers” pictures and “Man of Steel,” whose climactic melee is now a go-to reference for everything that’s wrong with the depiction of violence in superhero/sci-fi entertainment, the destruction we see on-screen feels more stagnant than staggering. “Midnight Special” is a refreshing corrective to this kind of moviemaking: the film’s action is crisp and concise, it doesn’t bog itself down with cumbersome origin story myth-making and when someone in the movie takes a hit, you can feel it in your gut.
The essay also notes that Nichols slyly tips his hat on a number of occasions to Kyrpton’s most famous resident, though he never overplays his hand in this regard. It’s a curious notion to consider, especially since the comparison to the ’80s Amblin films has pretty much been made ad nauseam at this point. I would argue that “Midnight Special” has more in common with Nichols’ early indies than it does with the lumbering likes of ‘Batman v Superman’ or “Transformers,” but it’s an interesting point of comparison nonetheless. Check out the video here, though readers who haven’t had the chance to check out “Midnight Special” yet will want to note that this essay is pretty spoiler-heavy.