Disclosure Day

Disclosure Day isn’t really about the action, exemplary as it is; it’s about connection — human and otherwise — and about Margaret and Daniel slowly realizing what they know, and how they can use that knowledge for good.

Disclosure Day’s epic conclusion comes across as if Spielberg is sending the audience a message, begging them to use their hearts and heads too. The moment plays into every complaint that’s ever been lodged about this raging sentimentality; I loved every second.

It’s classic Spielbergian fare, given that it’s a movie much more about us than intergalactic beings.

This is absolutely a film to go to the movies for: original, confident and boldly entertaining. And, at its core is a powerful tenderness.

Spielberg’s vision in “Disclosure Day” suggests audacity, even recklessness, two qualities that have often been wanting in his movies. There’s a sense of freedom, of a work pulled from deep within, that in some ways seems even more personal than the memoir-like “The Fabelmans.”

While Disclosure Day doesn’t live up to the high standards he’s set, it’s still a thrill ride, thumbing its nose at authority and begging its audience for more empathy, not less. Even if not all the pieces snap flawlessly into place, Disclosure Day is a reminder of how much magic is still left up Spielberg’s sleeve, how much excitement he and Koepp can bring to a story about government conspiracy, how easily Kamiński can make an audience nervous with the smallest lens flare, and how exhilarating it feels to listen to new Williams score. But because this creative team has hit so many homers before, even a mild showing can feel like a letdown.

Spielberg’s West Side Story demonstrated that the old master still has exciting work in him when he chooses to tackle a genre that’s new to him. But like Ready Player One and The Fabelmans before it, Disclosure Day reveals an artist spinning his wheels when he digs back into his own past triumphs.

The timing of this film is serendipitous just as our government is disclosing massive UFO videos ! The plot is based on realtime reality of what is actually happening now ! The movie was suspenseful with a great plot that made sense and did not insult my intelligence! This movie is tenderizing us for a very soon full discloser day! There were only good guys facing off against each other and for a change of pace nobody was killed or violently abused ! I have studied aliens and Spielberg has actually brought to light some real alien kind of interactions which lead me to believe aliens may have intervened in the making of this film ! A must see movie !

It’s no exaggeration to say that Steven Spielberg is one of the best and most influential directors of all time. His filmography contains a staggering number of red-hot bangers: Duel (1971), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Empire of the Sun (1987), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler’s List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), War of the Worlds (2005) and many, many more. The bloke has knocked out an outrageous number of all-time classics. He has also, it has to be said, been responsible for more than a couple of stinkers along the way. 1941 (1979), Hook (1991) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) are but a sample of some of the black marks on Spielberg’s record. That latter example is the most germane here, as we’re talking about his latest flick Disclosure Day. Once again, the 79-year-old legend of cinema returns to one of his favourite topics: aliens. Now, said subject gave us Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, two absolutely wonderful films. But aliens also crept into Crystal Skull and the results were significantly less stellar. So, how does Disclosure Day – a film that reunites Spielberg with longtime collaborators screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Crystal Skull) and composer John Williams (Jaws, Raiders) – stack up to the maestro’s earlier work?Not well, friends. Not well at all.Disclosure Day is the story of two apparently unconnected individuals. You’ve got Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a cybersecurity expert turned whistleblower who is on the run from the nefarious Wardex corporation with a backpack full of secrets, and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), an ambitious weather lady on Kansas City television who inexplicably gains strange abilities one day, like being able to speak fluent Korean and light mind-reading.Margaret, in particular, has little understanding of what’s going on and before she knows it, has become a target of Wardex and its sinister boss man, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). Of course, Daniel and Maggie have a connection that they can’t possibly imagine, and a huge-reality changing secret about extraterrestrial life to share with the world, if only they can survive long enough to disclose it.There’s nothing wrong with the premise of Disclosure Day. It’s a solid little mystery thriller conceit, with loads of potential. The problem is with almost everything else. Beginning in media res, Koepp’s script desperately wants us to feel a sense of danger and urgency as our main characters participate in a seemingly endless game of cat and mouse with Wardex goons. Unfortunately, the antagonists are such incompetent boobs that they never feel terribly threatening and if the stakes get too high, never mind, Mags will just develop a new power to get them out of whatever sticky situation they find themselves in. The runtime of this thing doesn’t help either, we’re talking 2+ hours here, where the bulk of the action is fleeing, getting caught, escaping and then fleeing all over again. And **** **** the plus side, the acting is mostly very good. O’Connor and Blunt are both likable protagonists with the latter doing fine work as always. Colman Domingo and Wyatt Russell are both solid in important supporting roles and Eve Hewson is good as Daniel’s girlfriend, even if her character is wildly inconsistent. Firth, oddly, is much less successful as Scanlon, never quite achieving the sense of menace required to make the role sing. However, the real dud here is the script. Koepp just can’t seem to find the magic in this story and the narrative moves from dull to absurd to mawkish and back to dull again. Even worse, Spielberg’s direction feels strangely flat and unengaged for most of the flick. The lighting is washed out, the action scenes merely competent and while the climax is a little more dynamic, it’s a shadow of similarly themed films that he’s done before. Hell, even Williams’ score feels oddly phoned in, as uninspired as everything that surrounds it.Look, we were all rooting for Disclosure Day. A return to subject matter covered so brilliantly by one of our best directors. With a sense of optimism and hope for humanity’s future featuring a stacked cast. Yes please, mate! Unfortunately, the resulting film is a baffling misfire and squanders the oodles of potential here. Overlong, ponderous, goofy and only occasionally enjoyable, Disclosure Day sadly joins the ranks of the lesser entries in Spielberg’s otherwise impressive canon.

'Disclosure Day' isn't Spielberg's best, but it's not a complete failure either. Emily Blunt is phenomenal, projecting a wide range of emotions from beginning to end. Furthermore, the questions it raises about religion, empathy, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life provide food for thought. However, the rest of the characters are quite forgettable, and the "catch me, you escape, catch me" structure is exhausting. David Koepp's screenplay leaves much to be desired.

Just watch Contact. This films reeks of an older man riding on brand recognition. The CGI looks 20 years old, the writing follows the same pattern. The tone has a bipolarity that teeters between Spielberg humor and a deeper conspiracy thriller that just doesn't gel. O'Conner and Blunt do a great job with what's here (although she looks a bit alien with that new surgery) but at the end of the day, this just wasn't worth watching. Finally they made the blacklist government agents into bumbling cartoon villains. A real disclosure day event did recently occurred, look it up and see how that really went for 13 people.

This might be like a Dan Brown book, but he would do it way better — all his stories are equally dumb, implausible, and entertaining. And this is what some love. Here we have a movie where it feels like no one knew what they were filming: a sci-fi thriller, a horror, or a fairy tale... 'Let's decide in post-production.' Instead, they kept it all in at once — incohesive and uneven until the cringy finale.