Well I watched Disclosure Day finally this past weekend and I have to say that Steven Spielberg’s return to proper sci-fi was in my opinion a disappointing. Here’s my spoiler free review (as much as I can keep it spoiler free). Then again, as you’ll see from my review I’m really not sure what there is to actually spoil about the film?
The Basics
The basic concept has been evident for some time thanks to interviews and trailers. The premise is that Non Human Intelligence is real and have been visiting our planet for 70+ years at least. There’s incontrovertible evidence of this and Josh O’Connor’s character is determined to reveal it, whilst Colin Firth’s character is determined to stop it being revealed.
What you would guess, is kinda what happens, they chase him, he escapes and it culminates in a climax. The problem I have with this movie is that the script is bang average and even a director like Spielberg cannot fix the issues. There are three interesting characters in the whole film. One of them, Emily Blunt’s is absolutley brilliant and she deserves all the plaudits she is getting, as she’s doing some heavy lifting here.
Wyatt Russell plays Blunt’s SO and he’ also interesting but very underused in the film. The final one is Colman Domingo, who’s always great, but again here he gets very little screen time devoted to him. Everyone else, including O’Connor and Firth are instantly forgettable and given they take up the majority of the screen time that’s a problem.
Don’t get me wrong, Spielberg puts together some decent car chases, though there’s probably one too many of those. He also pulls at the heart strings as only he can do once or twice. However, realistically the script simply does not allow him more room to do what he does.
Lack Of Imagination And Far Too Safe
The movie treads close to the whole UFO phenomenon without ever truly diving deep into the weeds. Shady MIB types, check, retrieved and reverse engineering NHI craft, check, showing any of this on film, uncheck. After that the movie takes it’s own initiative and has mechanical ‘plot’ devices, psychic connections and touches some remote viewing whilst it’s at it to fill in massive gaps in the plot.
Ultimately, Disclosure Day is a race towards the climax, then when it comes, it is immensely disappointing. Nothing really gets resolved and the only reactions we see from civilians are faces stuck in phones. These days that just looks normal if it were not for some stopped cars here and there. The big moments fell a little flat and I’ve heard it described as a great 2 hour trailer for a potentially more interesting and imaginative film that comes after the credits roll. I have to agree and I went in prepared to give it every chance.
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Realistically Spielberg needed to give the draft to a few other writers and say, ‘spice this up for me a bit’. The script is budget TV movie level and it looks and plays better than that by a few star performances and an outstanding director. However, strip all that back and what you’ve got isn’t very imaginative whatsoever and simply never takes enough risks. There’s even a moment or two placed in the film which I suspect is to keep the religious happy. The very fact the film is trying to placate the religious, instead of challenge it, is exactly what the movie’s problem is. It is safe, boring and instantly forgettable by even the UFO crowd who hear better yarns on YouTube these days.
I like the idea, but Spielberg really needs to stop working with David Koepp as I can’t remember the last time the man produced a decent script.
No Layers No Risk
Disclosure Day asks you to go though the motions. Unlike something like Close Encounters or E.T. there is just no layers to this one at all. What you see if pretty much what you get. Anything missing feels like laziness as opposed to adding mystery. There’s enough mystery in this genre in real life. I think what fans want, even though they know it’s just storytelling, are some viable answers and exploring how those answers may be handled.
There’s also almost no politics in this film, which seems crazy and again playing it too safe. Almost no mention of the government outside of one or two scenes with the ‘Company’ in terms of who they report to. Other than that it’s just Colin Firth and whatever he decides to do. Who is he and how did he get in this position? Well, that’s not important enough to include. Instead we get a deceased ex-partner as an excuse for his complete lack of empathy and general rotten mood.
GRADE: C
It’s watchable, but it is held together by three good performances (well designed characters) and duct tape shaped like UFO lore and mythology. When we finally see some NHI, they looked less believable than the fake stuff I’ve seen online. A watchable TV level movie elevated slightly higher by the budget and personnel involved.
Disclosure Day won’t be remembered as one of Spielberg’s classic films and I wonder if one day he’ll regret playing the movie so safe.
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