If there’s one thing that legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg loves more than making movies, it’s making movies about aliens.
Four years after his last film, The Fabelmans, Spielberg returns to the director’s chair to make his fifth movie to feature aliens, Disclosure Day. I think it’s safe to say that expectations have been pretty high for this film. For weeks leading up to its release and even in the theater lobby right before the screening I attended, the general mutterings among cinephiles seemed to agree that Disclosure Day is the director’s best film in decades.
Full disclosure, I think Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and has made some of my favorite films like Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones series. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen many of his recent films, and those I have seen from the past decade or so, namely Bridge of Spies and Ready Player One, I actually thoroughly disliked. So personally, I had high hopes that Disclosure Day would represent a return to form of the classic Spielberg who delivered scale, spectacle and substance that made his works instant classics.
So, did he achieve this arbitrary goal I set for him? Kinda.
At the start of Disclosure Day, Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is on the run from Wardex, his former employer that profits from government-funded research on crashed alien aircraft and their pilots while also preventing the existence of aliens from becoming public knowledge. Why? Because Daniel has stolen files proving the existence of extraterrestrial life and an alien artifact that Wardex head Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) desperately wants returned.
Meanwhile, local Kansas weather newscaster Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is discontent with her life and career until she suddenly and unexplainably develops the ability to comprehend and speak languages without realizing she is doing it and to access a person’s memories and thoughts just by looking into their eyes. Margaret and Daniel’s lives converge when she receives a psychic intuition to aid him in his quest to disclose all the top-secret evidence to the world.
Also in the background of all of this, World War III is about to erupt. So there’s also that. Yeah, a lot is going on here.
One thing to be aware of is that while Disclosure Day is about aliens, it’s not really ABOUT aliens. The focus is mostly on the cat-and-mouse game between Daniel and Scanlon and the mystery behind Margaret’s new abilities. Sure, we get one crop circle (that’s never acknowledged) and glimpses of aliens from the archival footage Daniel stole, but for most of the film, they’re mostly for flavor and intrigue rather than substance. These moments are almost like a reminder that the movie isn’t just about shady conspiracies.
Disclosure Day is really driven by its performances. Emily Blunt is captivating to watch. Her mastery of a full range of emotions is on full display as she effortlessly shifts from annoyance to compassion to distress in the blink of an eye. From the way Margaret flows into and out of different languages to her disarmingly calm demeanor as she reads people’s minds and shares the truths they want and need to hear, Blunt’s performance is so natural and charming that no matter how weird the movie gets, you can’t wait to see what she does next. Every time we cut away from her story, I found myself almost counting the seconds until she was back on screen. In a career full of iconic characters, this ranks high among Blunt’s most impressive performances.
Colin Firth also puts out a wonderfully villainous performance as Wardex boss Noah Scanlon. The character’s vast resources, matched with his dogged and almost unbreakable determination, make him a formidable opponent for Daniel and Margaret, though it is his conviction that his actions are in the best interests of humanity that makes him so effective. Firth’s poise and control, occasionally broken by fits of rage, serve as excellent foils to the protagonists, who are forced to react to his moves and scramble for their own safety.
Unfortunately, I didn’t care for Daniel, both as a character and Josh O’Connor’s performance. It’s not that O’Connor does anything especially egregious. I enjoyed his previous work, like Wake Up Dead Man and Challengers. As the sweaty, former desk jockey gone rogue for the good of humanity, he plays the part convincingly enough. There’s just nothing very compelling or interesting about him or his barely referenced “talent with numbers,” especially compared to strong performers like Blunt and Firth. Maybe this has more to do with David Koepp’s writing or Spielberg’s directorial decisions than O’Connor’s acting.
Of the supporting cast, Eve Hewson, who plays Daniel’s girlfriend Jane, was the real standout. Hewson’s physical differentiation between scenes in which Jane is in control of her body and those in which she is under Scanlon’s mind control is subtle yet distinct and effective.
The rest of the cast is just kind of along for the ride. Wyatt Russell is the baffled, reluctant boyfriend. Elizabeth Marvel is the kind, wise nun. Henry Lloyd-Hughes plays Scanlon’s angry and violent attack dog, Casper Boyd. Colman Domingo’s Hugo Wakefield is the mastermind behind the Disclosure Day plan, who just expects you to trust him based on how mysterious he is. Courtney Grace’s overly melodramatic line delivery as the NBC news anchor turned an otherwise pivotal and emotional scene into something unintentionally comedic. They’re all very plain and one-note, with little reason to care about them, but once again, that may be less a fault of the actors and more of the writing and direction they were given.
Mystery is at the core of Disclosure Day. Why does Margaret have these powers? What secrets lie in the stolen files? What exactly are the alien artifacts? How will the world react to real proof of alien life? What is Wakefield’s whole deal? Spielberg and Koepp drip-feed most, but not all, of the answers at a measured, deliberate pace that kept me invested and engaged in the story.
Unfortunately, that story is okay at best. While it is a race against time for Daniel and Margaret against Wardex, the plot lacks much of the urgency of Spielberg’s other films, and with a two-hour-and-25-minute runtime, you really start to feel the minutes. At times, the story seems to meander through the separate plot threads just to manufacture suspense. When we finally reach the conclusion, everything resolves too neatly. To quote Pitch Meeting’s Ryan George, it’s “super easy, barely an inconvenience.”
What’s even more frustrating is that so much of the plot relies upon unexplained MacGuffins, inconsistencies and incompetent henchmen. While keeping the alien artifacts undefined helps maintain the mystery and danger behind them, allowing them to do everything from mind control to invisibility to making people disappear just makes them a “get out of jail free” card for whenever Koepp and Spielberg wrote themselves into a corner. Either every single one of Wardex’s henchmen is incredibly stupid, situationally unaware or woke up with such stiff necks that they couldn’t look five feet in either direction, because that is the only explanation for how conveniently Daniel and Jane manage to make some of their escapes. The same can be said for Wakefield’s aides, doing stupid things at pivotal moments. Similarly, Scanlon and Boyd can’t seem to agree on what to do about the protagonists, shifting from a car chase shootout to wanting to take Daniel and Margaret alive to trying to crush them with a train.
Disclosure Day comes across as Spielberg waxing poetic about humanity, truth, and unity, inviting the audience to do the same. One of the central questions he asks is who gets to control access to the truth and whether sharing that truth is the right thing to do if it might cause people to get hurt. Rather than leaving that as a poignant point to ponder, by the end of the fim, we’re just tolt the answes without any exploration oitsse consequences.
To bookend on a positive note, Spielberg has crafted a gorgeous picture with Disclosure Day. The chase scenes are exciting and fun to see on a big screen. The alien creature design is out of this world, making the classic depiction of “little green men” feel both timeless and modern. The highlight of the whole film was the archival footage. Each clip was distinct and looked like something taken from a different era. Spielberg captured the wonder of witnessing proof of extraterrestrial life and added a dash of “Top Secret,” making me feel as if I were seeing footage I did not have the proper clearance to view. If Spielberg had cut half of the movie and replaced it with even more of these clips, I would have been perfectly happy.
So, once again, we return to the question: Is Spielberg back? Depending on who you ask, he never really left, but Disclosure Day feels like a return to that classic Spielberg magic. Though a lukewarm story hinders the film from reaching the heights of Jurassic Park or E.T.,Disclosure Day still captures the sense of wonder, joy and adventure that is at the core of why we go to the movies.
Steven Spielberg? Making a movie about aliens? With great performances by Emily Blunt and Colin Firth? It’s enough to make any species say, “Take me to your leader theater!”
Rating: 7/10