Smith, and Clooney are clearly suggesting our planet doesn’t have much time left, setting a film about climate catastrophe in 2049. Not too many details are given, but Brooks-Dalton, writer Mark L. He decides to stay behind after his station evacuates because of a planetary crisis.
It’s as hollow as can be.Ĭlooney plays the incredibly named Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist at the end of the world. He’s a welcome presence in his first on-screen performance since 2016, but Clooney’s direction is as a cold as the landscape his character travels, never once finding anything that feels organic or character-driven. Just being able to pick apart these references doesn’t inherently make “The Midnight Sky” a misfire, but what’s startling is how little is left to chew on after considering the better films brought back to memory by these superficial callbacks. The recipe here is a base of “ Gravity” (which Clooney himself has referenced as an influence, along with “ The Revenant”), a bit of “ The Road,” a dash of “ Interstellar,” a shot of “ Ad Astra,” a scoop of “ The Martian,” and a pinch of “ Children of Men” for flavor.
A dying man trudges across a dying planet in George Clooney’s ambitious sci-fi epic for Netflix, “The Midnight Sky.” Based on the book by Lily Brooks-Dalton, this is a piece that almost feels designed by a screenwriting algorithm informed by some of the top genre films of the last couple decades.
