I fell asleep 3 times, on three different occasions, trying to finish this movie. Boring, acting is dull, story is dull, everyone has the same facial expression through the entire movie. Even the action sequences put me to sleep. I really couldn't stand this movie. Awful. Terrible. Don't watch it.

Nichols is a gifted filmmaker. Both "Take Shelter" and "Mud" were special movies, stories that allowed complex characters to be sucked into intense drama within real settings. And the first 2/3 of this movie felt like it was heading the same way, from the fundamentalist kickoff to the surreal twists. Unfortunately, it just did not stick the landing. Too many unanswered questions and too many cliche sci fi moments. I wanted more than just an homage to 80s Spielberg flicks, but the emotional payoff was lacking here.

May contain some plot/theme spoilers.Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) Alf would be too obvious, likes to listen to the radio...in his head. He repeats what he hears thus "speaking in tongues" which appeals to "The Ranch" a Texas cult built upon Alton's spewing including classified information which draws due diligent attention. Roy (Michael Shannon), a member of the group, absconds with his own child (adopted by the pastor) with the aide of a friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) a policeman who is not a religious person. Mom (Kirsten Dunst) left the compound 2 years ago.Seems Alton has places to go, like Frank Lloyd Wright heaven, which appears near Pascagoula Mississippi?Now how this seemingly alien baby had human parents and had to live in the dark as an infant wasn't discussed in the film. This is a film which attempts to combine religion, spirituality and UFO sightings into one "real" explanation, although I liked "Altergeist" string theory better.The story was interesting even if the characters tilted to the stiff side and the dialogue mostly reeked as in the case of most serious sci-fi films where the script writer was too engrossed in the me-so-clever plot as to take a minute to create memorable characters.Guide: Could be viewed as going against the grain of religion. Minor PG swearing. No sex or nudity.

At 111 minutes, this "Midnight Special" turns into an endless experience, watching something that you have seen many times before with variations and different casts, including Martin Stephens in "Village of the Damned", Jeff Bridges in "Starman", Haley Joel Osment in "A.I. – Artificial Intelligence", and a rubber puppet designed by Carlo Rambaldi. My admiration for Jeff Nichols' films grew every time he released a new title, from "Shotgun Stories" in 2007, to "Take Shelter" in 2011 and "Mud" in 2012. However, this time he has gone the way of the big scale special effects frenzy with unfortunate results: it is so silly and simplistic, so lacking in finesse and humor, that I could not believe that it was the work of the same director. Nichols had previously been so delicate and perceptive of human condition (including "Take Shelter", a movie about ESP), and dealt intelligently with the innocence of boyhood, and the benign, naive side of manhood. This time again there is something similar in the core of the story, but the father seems too dumb and the kid too foreign to any credibility. If Nichols did not intend this story as a metaphor of Jesus Christ's passion (my goodness!), leaving the Holy Spirit out of this plot, then it also leaves an open door: how did this human-like E.T. end up in this world, having too earthlings as parents? I do not know who cares for a sequel, but I do not. The best thing in the film is Joel Edgerton as Lucas.