Disclosure Day: Another Spielberg Alien Flick

SPOILER ALERT: I will likely discuss specific scenes from this movie. If you have not seen “Disclosure Day” and just want a general gist of what to expect, you can swiftly scroll down to our “TL; DR Verdict”, along with the “Oscar Watch” section, which speculates on this film’s prospects at the 99th Academy Awards in spoiler free fashion. Also, you can do all that if you’re lazy and hate this whole “reading” thing. If this spoiler alert was too long, prompting you to nope out of my review altogether, then I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Do aliens exist? More importantly, do you even care to know the answer to that question?

If your name is legendary director Steven Spielberg, the answer to the latter is clearly a resounding YES. After all, prior to “Disclosure Day”, he made classics such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial”, “The War of the Worlds”, and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. No shortage of otherworldly creatures in his work, that’s for sure. Clearly, this guy:

And Spielberg would get along swimmingly. Maybe they will collaborate to make something for audiences worldwide? Perhaps an epic about how the aliens secretly built the pyramids starring Rami Malek, Pedro Pascal, Zendaya and Glen Powell? At the very least, I am confident that the History Channel guy binge watches his films on a regular basis.

Anyway, “Disclosure Day”, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson and more presents the following premise: If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to eight billion people. Today is... Disclosure Day.

The synopsis they give begs the question: Does the world deserve to know about the existence of this film? Or are some works better off left un-shown to the general public?

Currently, the unidentified flying objective analysts over some Krypton-like planet called Rotten Tomatoes put this film at an 80% certified fresh rating, while audiences rank it slightly lower at 71% certified fresh. Not exactly the raving reviews we see on other films, but not particularly panned by any means.

Box office wise, the film is still trying to break even. It requires around $287 to $300 million to do so but currently sits at around $200 million. They need to find some extra money, and you know what makes BANK for people? That’s right… The tomatoes. The industry is valued at over $204 BILLION, so if Hundred Tomatoes discloses a good review for this film, maybe it’ll help it make the money it needs to get over the hump. So…

Without further ado, let’s get to this review!

Few individuals possess a more robust pedigree than Steven Spielberg. I guarantee that if you go out on the street and ask people to name three famous filmmakers, the man in question will pop up more often than not. Go ahead and do that right now. I dare you. If one of you all does this and finds that nobody cares to mention this man’s name, I will be more shocked than the time I saw that life scarring scene from “The White Lotus” season three. If you know, you know.

But here’s the interesting part about status: it can wear off. Other times, it can coast on name recognition alone. Case in point: remember when everyone used to get genuinely excited whenever Marvel or Star Wars announced new films? Nowadays, you’re lucky to get a shrug out of most people when they unveil new trailers.

Word of the wise: if you’re going to create an expansive universe, don’t call any of your films “Avengers: Endgame” then try to start it all back up again less than a year later… The film was called ENDGAME, not “Endgame…… For now…. Until we want more of your money. Thank you, come again.”

Honestly though, if it was called that instead, I might’ve watched a bunch more of their new releases afterwards. The title is so transparent in its self-interest that I would have to respect it. As you can tell, I see the world wildly, and in wild ways.

Alright, now let’s get back to your regularly scheduled review. To maintain status, it requires a continuous dedication to innovation and quality. Otherwise, it loses its luster. We see brands and/or individuals build up an incredible reputation, only to see it come crashing down after a while. Will Spielberg fall under this list, or is he simply too talented to avoid this trap?

One positive component that jumps out pertains to the acting. Emily Blunt for example needs to portray a role of a news reporter suddenly overcome with alien-like superpowers, almost as if someone took over her entire body. Her internal struggle with this element leads to some solid opportunities to display serious physical and emotional range. Generally speaking, she plays her part well, bringing the character to life captivatingly while portraying a ton of truly conflicting emotion. Her panic attack scene as they hop on the train to escape agents jumps out as some truly impressive acting.

The other acting moment I will give a shout out to involves Colman Domingo, a former agent turned alien truther and Colin Firth, the lead federal agent. They get into a dramatic confrontation about whether they should disclose government secrets to the people. Both passionately make their case about the nature of humanity, and whether it would make or break them knowing this potentially life altering information. They both sell me on their emotion, even if the overarching tonal debate eventually comes undone (which I will get to in a bit). The rest of the acting leaves no real impression on me.

The score from John Williams also contains quality riffs that generate intrigue in a subtle manner. It does not beat you over the head or become overbearing but still sets a consistent tone that guides you through the film. It utilizes a ninety six piece symphonic orchestra, interweaving lush strings, brass, and intimate solos with modern synthesizers. It also features specialty acoustic textures, a larger-than-usual bassoon section, and a human chorus to represent the off-world entities. It doesn’t take any massive swings or leave you with anything super memorable, but is definitely one of the better aspects of the film.

The film essentially tries to explore two major themes: whether human nature can capably handle life-changing information that could shatter their existing worldview, and the need for empathy of others different from us. All in all, the underlying ideas pique my interest, but neither theme exploration gets a proper plane landing. Let’s break it down piece by piece.

For starters, often themes hit home through the character development. But none of the people in this movie contain particularly well-fleshed out traits, arcs, or motives, making it difficult to feel invested in any of them. They start the film at such a point where you need to learn things as it goes along, but I keep waiting for important context on people’s characters that just never really gets there in a way that makes me feel bought into them. I blame the editing for not pacing it in a way that allows for me to put the character’s pieces together quickly enough. Or at least in ways that help me relate to them as humans.

For the first theme: if you’re going to build up this entire debate about how humanity would react to such a revelation, you need to show the aftermath of said revelation. We get almost none of that, other than shots of people looking kind of shocked as they watch alien footage on their phone. They build up this entire debate throughout the course of the film only to never find out who was actually right. It feels like an extra thirty minutes or so of the movie is missing. Much like that puppy and the frickin’ pigeon book they publish in “Elf”.

At best, we get a conversation about how God would accept aliens after one of the characters faces an existential crisis upon finding out the classified information from her significant other. The conversation occurs between her and her nun mentor. None of it feels particularly natural or earned. More like a case of “telling” as opposed to “showing”.

On the other theme: They tell me I need empathy, which is cool: I am all about empathy. But they never give me an underlying reason as to WHY I should show empathy for the aliens. For instance, what are their motives? Why are they on Earth? Do they want to kill all humans? Or do they want to hold hands by a fireplace and sing Kumbaya? The answer to these questions is the following:

More depth is needed on this front. We learn essentially nothing about them throughout the course of the entire movie. Even the technology and powers the humans gain access to from them appear to contain no rhyme or reason to them. It feels as if they make up all the rules as they go along. Basically, any time they wanted to amp something up, they would introduce a new capability of some kind.

Some of those abilities for aliens include shapeshifting and manipulate people’s minds into compliance. Both of those are actually… Kind of terrifying. They could easily lead to the demise of humanity. Should I really be empathetic of a group that has proven to use it for nefarious purposes already?

Last major issue: the stunts. Some of these action chase scenes feel like something out of a slapstick comedy, but are not edited to feel like they should be interpreted as such. One sequence in particular baffles me:

So, two of the characters are getting chased by at least fifty Federal agents. To escape, they steal a car that someone leaves unlocked in broad daylight (nobody sees or hears them walking to the car), then they drive that car off a cliff, and hide behind a rock within a short walk of the cliff. The agents get to the cliff, then drive/walk away.

You’re telling me that of the tens of agents there, not one of them thought to themselves, “okay, so they drove the car off the cliff, but maybe they tucked and rolled… Let’s search the premises.” The two characters are literally WITHIN EARSHOT of these agents, but not one of them think to check behind a rock. Did they go to the Stormtrooper school of competence or something? Nothing to see here folks, move along I guess…

Stunts like these make it hard to feel like they’re overcoming astronomical odds (which on paper, they are). The villain never gets properly fleshed out, and only possesses a surface level interest in preventing people from seeing the information. Even at the end when trying to prevent the massive broadcast disclosure, the main agent gets to the studio and just kind of… Gives up. The motive behind it appears a bit unclear.

I’m teeing off on this film right now and I feel really bad about it, so let me balance it out with a defense of a common critique I hear of this film: the animal CGI. We eventually learn the aliens shapeshift into animals to disguise themselves. I’ve read a few online complaints about how the animation of said animals looks painfully outdated.

I let that slide, because I feel like they went for that intentionally. After all, the aliens are shapeshifting, so do they need to look super photorealistic? My answer is no. In disguises, there’s usually a tell. I think Spielberg was also alluding to the fact that when people recall alien encounters, the memory gets a bit fuzzy. I think there was a method to the CGI madness here.

Alright, my venting is now out in the ether. Let’s wrap this up.

Here’s the deal: I really wanted to like this movie. I love a lot of Spielberg’s work, Emily Blunt is one of my favorite actresses, the premise intrigues me, and what’s not to like about John Williams?

Unfortunately, the story in “Disclosure Day” simply does not compellingly bring all its main messages home in my mind. Nor does it develop the characters in particularly engaging fashion. With so many other great films out there from this year like “Project Hail Mary”, “Obsession” and more, I would encourage checking out those well before disclosing to others your plans to see this.

TL;DR Verdict: A film featuring solid acting from Emily Blunt and a nice score from John Williams that asks some interesting philosophical questions but gets completely undone by a half-baked plot premise with uneven editing, undercooked characters, along with questionable stunt planning.

Hundred Tomatoes Score: 49/100

Oscar Watch

Frankly, I’m not envisioning Academy Award nominations of any kind. Spielberg possesses an impeccable pedigree in Hollywood, but it would need to be that reputation alone that lands anything. There’s just nothing about this film that jumps out at me as Oscar worthy. The aesthetics appear relatively generic, nothing about it electrifies on a tech front, and the writing feels like it needs more workshopping. Unless I am missing something, I give this a one percent chance at most of any serious consideration for the grand prize. With that said, maybe it can land some kind of recognition for the following:

Best Actress: Emily Blunt needs to portray someone possessed by an alien, thus needing to showcase some quality range as she adapts to this development. She’s a bit of an industry darling, so maybe she can sneak in here?

Best Score: Like Spielberg, John Williams’ reputation precedes him. He turns in an engaging enough score, so I could see him getting rewarded with a nomination potentially. It’s not likely, but it’s within the realm of possibility.