There is nothing better than watching a post-apocalyptic movie set in the aftermath of a global catastrophe, especially when you are amidst a global pandemic.

Oscar-winner George Clooney’s latest movie “The Midnight Sky,” based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, is an emotional yet hollow endeavor. It's intended to be a melting pot of popular sci-fi movies notably “Interstellar,” “Ad Astra,” “The Martian,” and “Gravity” but it misses the mark. Clooney’s lackluster direction is as chilly as the landscape his character travels on.

The movie is set in 2049 when an unidentified calamity wipes out most of Earth's population and leaves most of the planet inhabitable. Clooney plays a dying scientist named Augustine Lofthouse, who refuses to evacuate a remote Arctic research station and decides to spend his dying days in isolation. While buried in his desolation, Augustine searches for ongoing crewed space missions to warn about the situation on Earth. He finds only one: a craft called Æther, returning from Jupiter's habitable moon K-23. Neither the crew nor Lofthouse can contact each other, mainly due to Lofthouse's weak antenna. During an abrupt kitchen fire, Augustine discovers a mute girl left behind from the evacuation named Iris (Caoilinn Springall). After some bonding, they travel to a different outpost where they can contact the spacecraft Æther and tell them not to return.

Don’t get me wrong, the stunning soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat and vivid cinematography by Martin Ruhe both add to this doomsday odyssey, and the star-studded cast is a bonus. Sadly, without these production assets and unlike the page-turning suspense of its literary counterpart, the film is like cinematic broccoli.

The feelings of warmth and hope in this movie get drowned out by the blockbuster action sequences and slow, pace. Viewers get caught between Augustine and Iris’s journey through the Arctic, the return trip of Æther, and Augustine's brief flashbacks, leaving no time for rich character development.

The best parts of “The Midnight Sky” really shine through in Clooney's moments with young Caoilinn Springall, who plays the mysterious girl left behind in the remote arctic station. The “Peas Battle'' scene, for example, is the most memorable and heartfelt moment in the movie, if not the only part that evokes an emotional response from the viewer. Even their journey through the Arctic wasteland resonates the best of the film. Their mission together creates a handful of powerful moments of realization and survival. It’s a shame that this dynamic relationship is overshadowed and glossed over by extraneous details.

Even these tender moments cannot save this movie from its predictable plot twists and clunky tangents. This movie is as weightless as space.