But "Midnight Special" peels the layers of the story away elegantly and confidently. But the climax doesn't match the wonder and tension of the journey and the grace of the aftermath.

“The Midnight Special” was part of a mini-wave of late-night rock-music TV shows in the early 1970s that also included ABC’s “In Concert” and the syndicated “Don Kirshner’s Rock ...

But Midnight Special holds far too much in reserve where it counts. Its minimalism comes off as gelid rather than as an essential tool for deploying story. Roy and Lucas both remain more or less ...

At its best, “Midnight Special” reminds us why Nichols is such an exciting presence on the filmmaking scene, from the poetically minimal look and sound of his work (he once again collaborates ...

Watch a film clip from "Midnight Special," starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and Jaeden Lieberher. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures “Midnight Special,” a beautifully strange and stirring sci ...

Midnight Special 's Superman stand-in is Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), an 8-year-old boy with incredible powers that neither he nor the dozens of adults trying to control him understand.

Midnight Special is about the father-son journey and that relationship, but it is surrounded by these larger questions about Alton and his family, and those aren't always explored.

'Midnight Special," from writer-director Jeff Nichols, evinces the same knack for melding realism and fantasy that the filmmaker brought to his breakout 2011 film "Take Shelter." In that film ...

The great Michael Shannon plays Roy, the father of an 8-year-old boy named Alton (Jaden Lieberher), who is the subject of an Amber Alert in Texas. Roy and his old friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton), a ...

“Midnight Special” is an old-school, sci-fi thriller, its special effects doled out sparingly in the story of a young boy with inexplicable powers and the adults who are, variously, trying to ...