Dexter's Michael C. Hall Starred In This Forgotten Netflix-Exclusive Sci-Fi Movie

Since the original "Dexter" on Showtime ended back in 2013, Michael C. Hall developed a peculiar ability to pick roles in multiple movies and TV shows that flew under the radar. While Hall has starred in a handful of popular movies like John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein's 2018 beloved action-comedy "Game Night" or Scott Z. Burns' 2019 political thriller, "The Report," these have been outnumbered by movies that often went nowhere, such as "Christine," "Lazarus," and "John and the Hole." Another example that has been completely dismissed in recent years is Netflix's 2019 sci-fi thriller, "In the Shadow of the Moon."

The plot follows police officer Thomas Lockhart (Boyd Holbrook), his partner Maddox (Bokeem Woodbine), and his detective brother-in-law Holt (Hall), as they begin investigating a mysterious case in Philly in 1988, which involves victims dying a cryptic and gory death of some kind of bizarre brain haemorrhage. The clues lead the detective trio to an unknown woman who seems to know unknowable things about the future. But before Lockhart and his guys could find out who she is, the stranger completely disappears — only to resurface nine years later without having aged a second. It takes another nine years until Lockhart puts the pieces together to realize she's been travelling through time to prevent a specific event. Naturally, everyone around him, including Maddox and Holt, now thinks he's just an alcoholic slowly losing his grip on reality. Thus, he'll need to prove them wrong and solve this case before it kills him.

Netflix cranks out many movies every year, and many of those leave the public consciousness probably as fast as they entered it. It's almost impressive how many mediocre films the streamer makes that no one cares about these days, and which aren't necessarily terrible (like this "Blade Runner"-inspired sci-fi with Glenn Close and Willem Dafoe), but simply unremarkable on virtually every level. Unfortunately, "In the Shadow of the Moon" falls into that category. Although it has an interesting — albeit formulaic — screenplay, a couple of serviceable performances from a decent cast, and a dark, melancholy vibe that does a lot of the heavy lifting, ultimately, it's a movie that's very easy to move on from.

Unsurprisingly, upon its release, "In the Shadow of the Moon" received lukewarm reviews from critics (currently holding a 59% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and didn't fare much better with audiences either (thus the 50% Popcornmeter rating). But if you're a devoted Michael C. Hall or Boyd Holbrook completist, you can do much worse than this sci-fi flick, I guess.