AVClub: In the opening scene of Midnight Special, two armed men sneak a boy out of a motel room and into a customized ’72 Chevelle before peeling off into the dusk. The mulberry sky turns blue-gray with twilight, and then pitch black. The driver hits a toggle switch wired behind the steering wheel, cutting off the headlamps and taillights. The car disappears into the darkness. It will be about 40 minutes before the viewer even finds out how the men, Roy (Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton), know each other, though by then they will have ditched the Chevelle for a plumber’s white Ford Econoline van and, later, an Isuzu Trooper. Midnight Special is very particular about its cars, just as it’s very particular about its setting—the gas stations, motels, and working-class suburbs of the Bible Belt—and the cautious speech of its characters. In every other respect, Jeff Nichols’ compelling sci-fi chase film is terse and elliptical, showing little and telling less.
Joblo
I’m fond of thinking that if MIDNIGHT SPECIAL had come out twenty or thirty years ago, it would have been a smash hit. It says something rather sad about our current film culture that a mainstream movie like MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, despite being produced by a major studio, had to struggle to find screens and generate business during it’s too-quick theatrical window earlier this year. The absence of big-stars or an easily digestible plot seemed to doom it at the box office.
TRR: Many have called Midnight Special a spiritual successor to the 1980s films of Steven Spielberg. However, writer/director Jeff Nichols himself has gone on record as saying that the similarities aren't by design. Intentional or not, the movie's themes and narrative structure do evoke certain Spielbergian undertones — with a little John Carpenter thrown in for good measure.
From Cinelinx:
A refreshingly restrained science fiction film, Midnight Special will give fans of the genre something to cheer about.
Man, I really want to see this one, but can't seem to find a theater close enough playing it. Heard so many great things, but looking like I'll have to wait on blu-ray.
