Following the month of May, dominated by films from younger directors, 79-year-old Steven Spielberg stepped back up to the plate for another alien movie. Steven Spielberg plus aliens generally calls for an instant classic. However, “Disclosure Day” isn’t quite that.
Disclosure day takes a more societal and humanistic view of aliens. It follows weathergirl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) as they work to disclose secrets of extraterrestrial activity kept by the government. All the while, the two are evading the government that is trying to keep these secrets hidden. The film wrestles with the morality of keeping these secrets to maintain public control and trust, or telling the public and facing the consequences of the public finding out about the secrets. If the U.S. Government knew about aliens, I could likely see it being covered up for decades. This really helped to give the film some realism, more than I’ve ever felt from an alien movie. I thoroughly enjoyed this practicality.
Less real, however, was the CGI. A few imaginative scenes in the third act felt more like a Disney movie than a Spielberg alien film. They felt out of place, and could’ve been much better. The live-action scenes were solid. The second half of the movie was action-packed and enjoyable.
Some of my biggest complaints came in the pacing. The film started pretty slowly. For nearly the first hour, I felt as clueless as the American public did about the aliens. Then, throughout the third act, these secrets unravel, and it becomes an edge-of-your-seat, fun experience. On one hand, the secrets getting revealed felt very earned. However, I just felt like nothing was getting accomplished during that timeframe.
Following the slow start, the last 30 minutes were full of action. During this time, the thrilling and emotional aspects really built up the anticipation. Some of these scenes were among the most intriguing I’ve seen in an action movie in some time. However, the ending fell a little flat and abrupt for me, although many would disagree with that sentiment. I wanted to see so much more about the aliens, the government’s real use and relationship with the aliens, and much more. These aspects were largely avoided towards the end.
Spielberg did a solid job with “Disclosure Day,” but I just felt like it lacked some of the shock and awe and magic that his films have grown to have. The less you know about this movie going in, the better. To me, it was marketed as an alien movie (“E.T.”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”). However, it ended up much more as a sci-fi thriller. Overall, it was a good-but-not-great summer action film.
My Rating: 3.5/5
Leave a Reply