Sadly Over-hyped

How sad is this?

Good movie but grossly overrated

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

On a long flight on SAS, I saw the first three episodes of Midnight Sun and became hooked. As an American, I could not find a DVD I could watch in the states. The first part of the series was so haunting that I found help with our technical problems (PAL vs NTSC TV's) and DVD Region restrictions. The series is much more complicated and well written than ordinary police fiction. The main characters are well drawn and despite issues that other critics have noted about police procedure (rushing into a situation without backup, letting the bad guys ambush the cops) I found the writing and acting riveting. The story line is convoluted but nowadays the scenario seems plausible. In most drama the reader or viewer has to suspend judgment sometimes. Midnight Sun, with the exception of the powers of the Sami noaide, did not require much suspension. The ending was unexpected.I regret that the season started with a premise and brought it to a logical conclusion. That, for me, means that perhaps the story has been told and no second story would be strong enough to justify a second season.

Enjoying the story line and plot, with amazing shots and beautiful scenery. Not an action series, but great plot with some torture scenes. A hidden culture that surprises you and makes you wonder if they actually exist. Great to watch. The cinematography / style seems to be almost the same as Sense8. Love it.

SPOILER: Beautiful scenery but the story and acting is so bad Peter Stormare retired after the first episode! A young french Police investigator is sent to Kiruna, Sweden, to assist the local investigators after a french citizen is found murdered -how long has this been happening? sending Police to foreign countries to assist in inquiries of death of local citizen, albeit a young female investigator. Totally absurd - the Swedish prosecutor has marital/relationship problems and has a liking for another male, the helicopter pilot!! Where's Wallander when we need him? I was so much looking forward to this series as I love Scandinavian crime movies/books but was (obviously) extremely disappointed.

I wanted to like this movie and I mostly did but it ruined things by taking itself far too seriously on the one hand and not seriously enough on the other. I'll try to explain. The plot is good, interesting characters, nicely built suspense and mystery and some of the most gruesome murders I've ever seen outside of pure torture porn/slasher movies. There's the potential for some nice character development and in the case of one older man it happens but is cut off all too soon. In other characters it never really eventuates - sadly. I like a series or movie where I really don't want particular characters to die and that was the case for me with the "town drunk" and his lady friend. I was sufficiently intrigued by the mystery to stay for the entire shebang tho the final episode was a stretch and I actually skipped a large chunk in the middle due to the overuse of tragic violins, slow motion camera work, etc etc over-doing the drama. This brings me to the negative. First of all the "too seriously part. The lead female character was unbelievably self-absorbed, churlish, petty & rude. She continually showed a shocking lack of ordinary common sense let alone official police officer sense. The character ended up irritating me no end. And the direction and production of the series seemed to think this was the best part of the whole shebang so they draw out excruciatingly long scenes with her having tiresome "moments" of drama with god- awful overly dramatic violin music in the background making it even more headache inducing. Honestly, 'over-wrought" would be an under-statement both in terms of the production and the lead female's acting - tho I suspect that's how the director told her to play it. This rubbish almost put me off watching the series but there was just enough to keep me interested. The other thing that almost made me stop watching was the mind-numbingly stupid behaviour of the Prosecutor, the police and other characters throughout the show - used to advance the narrative and force situations that were quite ludicrous. Nobody yells out and lets bad guys know they are there thereby losing the element of surprise instead of hiding, running away or sneaking up and attacking the villain. No cop just blunders into situations without checking around first. And don't get me started on how dense the Prosecutor was in every possible respect. Again - it's a wonder I kept watching coz that unrealistic level of stupidity usually sends me screaming off to watch something else. I guess the story was good enough to keep me tho - in particular the fascinating stuff about the local indigenous people and their rituals etc. I had no idea they even existed. Worth watching just for that. Overall I recommend this series, it has enough positive to be worthwhile but be aware of it's negatives. They are annoying as hell. Shame coz this could easily have rated a 7 or 8 but too much was awful about it.