Good sci-fi films are hard to find these days, and so I was intrigued to see Midnight Sky released on Netflix this month. If its slick trailer and all-star cast were any indication, then I was due for a treat. It’s arrival just in time for the holidays was an added bonus, I could watch with much less distraction, and so, I hoped to add it to the pantheon of great sci-fi flicks. So … did it live up to its billing?

Midnight Sky is based on the 2016 book Good Morning Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, and centers around the lives of two space scientists – Augustine Lofthouse (played by the redoubtable George Clooney) and Sully Rembshore (played by the enchanting Felicity Jones). The basic plot is as follows. Augustine staffs an arctic observatory and may well be the last man standing on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Sully and her crew staff the starship Aether, their spirits buoyed by their recent discovery of a habitable world on one of Jupiter’s moons. With the knowledge it can be colonized, they head back home unaware of the calamity that has befallen Earth. Augustine must find a means to communicate with them before their return, which sets him on a perilous quest, while the road home for the Aether’s crew is full of bumps and twists.

The Good :

• The cinematography is eye candy from end to end, with an especially immersive space-walk scene that stands above the many common to the genre.

• Acting is top-notch as expected. Clooney is at his best, pensive and brooding with a reluctant resolve that humanizes the film. The camera too loves Jones, who is utterly believable and brings an optimistic energy that balances the story’s grim tones.

The Bad :

• It lacks a big-idea. Sci-fi’s lure is that it transports us into alien settings, with different technologies, switching out our contemporary lens for one focused on new possibilities, trials and temptations. We get to observe how humanity fares through these challenges, celebrating our potential when it has been realized and loathing when our failings get in the way, same as they always have. The film misses this by a celestial parsec.

• The support cast was wasted. David Oyelowo is the only other character that had anything to work with, but that’s not saying much, since the other cast members were as valuable as a spent rocket booster falling to the Earth (after propelling Jones’s payload upward into the stratosphere). Kyle Chandler, the venerable Coach Taylor of Friday Night Lights, was demoted to water boy, and the film would be no worse off if he missed the game altogether.

Ultimately, Midnight Sky has done little to restore my faith in the ability of the studio gods to conjure up a good sci-fi movie. It’s a film that prefers style over substance, and while it is very watchable, left me wanting.