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Steven Spielberg practically invented the summer movie season when Jaws became the first ‘blockbuster’ back in the summer of ’75. I was hoping Disclosure Day might be a return to the kind of big summer event movie that launched his career, but it’s a much more subdued and dreary affair than any of his hits from the ’70s or ’80s. While aliens are part of the mystery Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp are telling, Disclosure Day is oddly averse to indulging in any of the spectacle, awe, or wonder that made E.T., Jurassic Park, or Raiders of the Lost Ark so exciting. It’s more patterned after political thrillers from the ’70s with a few poetic genre touches thrown in as window dressing.
Koepp’s screenplay, based on a story by Spielberg, follows two main characters. Josh O’Connor plays a code writer and mathematician who steals a bunch of confidential videos from a shady tech company. The videos depict UFOs and proof of aliens on Earth, including our inhumane treatment of them. His goal is to get the videos shown on worldwide television. (You have to ignore that he could have just uploaded the videos to the web.) While he evades capture by the company’s goons, the film cross-cuts to Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) as a local TV weather reporter. After a strange encounter with a cardinal, she begins speaking in tongues — including an odd alien language on live television. This puts her on the radar of both the mysterious company, led by Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), and another mysterious party led by Colman Domingo (Michael). Serendipity (or a mightily contrived plot) brings O’Connor and Blunt together, essentially so Blunt can use a handful of newfound super powers to protect O’Connor while the two make their way to her TV station to broadcast the tapes.
I liked Disclosure Day enough to get through it one time, but I don’t know if its something I’ll ever want to watch again. As a huge Spielberg devotee, I take no pleasure in saying this. It’s just not a remarkable movie. Emily Blunt has a few standout moments to show what a great actor she can be, and Spielberg can still stage a scene like nobody’s business, but Disclosure Day never achieves a palpable sense of reality or engagement. It never ‘takes off’ or establishes stakes convincing enough to make us care about what is happening. It’s a mystery movie where all the mystery comes from what the writer is withholding from us, instead of organic developments in the story. In other words, things are only a mystery until characters conveniently ‘remember’ all the clues necessary to solve their problem.
The film also suffers from poorly conceived, wishy-washy villains. Firth and his goons almost capture the heroes several times, but they always escape because the company is afraid to use lethal force on them. Maddeningly, right before the climax, the bad guys simply decide to give up the pursuit — right when it matters most. It’s as though they never really cared if the truth about aliens and UFOs became public or not. Without strong villains willing to kill to achieve their aim, the film never builds any genuine suspense and we never feel the characters are in any real danger.
The last half hour of the long, two-and-a-half-hour film takes place after O’Connor and Blunt begin airing the footage around the world. I found this to be the most interesting part of the movie. But even though it taps into our shared fascination of alien mythology, the sequence requires a healthy suspension of disbelief about how easily the airwaves can be hijacked, or how easily the world might believe what they see on the news.
You might have to be a real believer in aliens and UFOs in order to swallow the story and invest in these characters. The film takes itself far too seriously for any skeptics or non-believers to get caught up in it. If it had a lighter, more fun or humorous tone, I might have enjoyed Disclosure Day better. I also think if David Koepp hadn’t skipped a whole first act, and presented key information about Blunt’s and O’Connor’s characters up-front, instead of withholding it for dramatic effect, I might have warmed to them faster. Disclosure Day acts like it wants to be profound, with something meaningful to say about squaring religion with the revelation of possible alien existence. But is this really a problem for anyone? If you believe in God, you’ll believe God created the aliens, too, won’t you?
Colin Firth’s villainous character in this movie insists that humanity simply isn’t ready for the truth about aliens — that ‘disclosure’ would freak us all out to such a degree that life as we know it would come to a screeching halt and the world would become unglued. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think that’s true anymore. And it might be another reason Disclosure Day fails to grab me.
With Wyatt Russell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, and Elizabeth Marvel.