Film Preview: Midnight Special (2016)

Page Revisions:

(January 3, 2016) Original
(March 13, 2016) New Trailers (#2 & #3) / Added Image Gallery

Release Date:

March 18, 2016

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “A father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.”

Poster Rating: C+

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Review: Unless you watch the trailer, the poster makes almost no sense. It doesn’t have an attractive visual style to draw the viewer in and while the tagline might generate some interest in the pic, the overall execution isn’t likely to be very intriguing to most.

Trailer Rating: B / B+ / B-

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Review: (#1) The trailer is jumbled, somewhat hard to follow and doesn’t play well to its strengths. However, there is enough detail to give the premise a spark of creativity, which is all an audience should need to explore new films.

(#2) The stakes are set and the players are introduced in a convincing and fascinating way. This isn’t your typical superhero drama, rather exploring what could be a genuine realism to what would happen should such a person should emerge. That dynamic gives the film a much more interesting potential than the prior trailer.

(#3) This trailer ratchets up the worst elements of the film, making the stakes seem muted and making the characters seem like insignificant cogs or even rote stereotypes.

Oscar Prospects:

Director Jeff Nichols has yet to make a film the Academy could embrace, even with Michael Shannon’s Take Shelter earning him several critics awards. That’s two lauded films that haven’t made waves with Oscar voters (the other Mud), so I wouldn’t expect much here either.