Do aliens live among us? Steven Spielberg fills this film with action and a complicated cyber security plot we found spellbinding but disappointing in the end. It involves a government run company covering up the existence of extraterrestrials on Earth even though they may be affecting strange human behavior.
Spielberg has been a believer since he was a kid. And with his out-of-this world cast Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth, you may wonder too. In 1963 at the age of 16, Spielberg’s Dad took him to see stars in the Arizona desert, which inspired his first film, Firelight. Since then, we’ve seen him bring alien life back in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and War of the Worlds. You have to pay close attention to this complicated plot and the different sides of the characters.
Spielberg was inspired to go back to making another film about aliens or as they are now termed, UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) after seeing Documentary Director Dan Farah’s film, The Age of Disclosure, exposing a huge cover up silencing whistleblowers who have seen videos UFO’s that were taken by military pilots. Aliens may already be living among us, kept under wraps by the government for fear of panicking the public.
Spielberg decided to create this story and share his idea with writer David Koepp (War of the Worlds, Panic Room, Jurassic Park films) who took off on it. But they wanted the story to focus on if there are aliens we should for them and those touched by them. That is the main emotion Spielberg goes for in this film.
The film has a jarring start with cyber security genius, Dr. Daniel Kellner, (O’Connor) at a loud, brutal wrestling match looking uncomfortable waiting to exchange a backpack containing an invaluable tech tool for the rescue of his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson). The contents of the bag hold key evidence of human and alien contact. Daniel is a former employee of the Wardex, run by nasty villain, Noah Scanlon (Firth) who calls the shots at government contracted research facility. Noah is hell bent on securing the device with classified data he wanted Daniel to hand over so he can keep the secret information under wraps.
Next we meet TV Meteorologist Margaret Fairchild, (Blunt) late getting ready for work when a beautiful red cardinal flies in her kitchen and seems oddly to be able to connect with her. What’s up with that? And there are more colorful animated animals with big round empathetic eyes that interact with her and with Josh. They seem to come out of nowhere. We thought we were watching a Disney film?
Margaret’s funny, but exasperated boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell) notices, but just tries to rush her out the door to present the weather on TV on time. Russell is vastly underused in this film and disappears for most of the film.
But something has changed. It gets strange when she goes eyes wide, into a trance, spouting clicks in what may be an alien tongue instead of the forecast. Is she is a medium between alien and humans, without knowing it? Blunt is all consuming in this role. Her exceptional performance is other-worldly. We found out that she actually made up the language that rolls off her tongue when she goes off the rails on air. Blunt and practiced it so she could deliver it so easily, you’d think it was her native tongue.
Daniel drops Jane off at a convent where she knows she can be kept safe by the calm and compassionate Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel). Jane has been there before. This is where the action kicks into high gear as parallel paths develop.
Enter Hugo, (Colman Domingo), a former high level executive at Wardex, who wants Daniel to connect with Margaret after her out of body, unearthly experience. Hugo is all about empathy and seems to think she and Daniel have something special in common from the past. Once together, they’re followed by Noah’s goons leading to implausible chase scenes. When their car is pushed onto train tracks and gets hooked on a freight train barreling top speed down the tracks, it’s do or die as they try to hang on while being shot at. They have to jump onto the train to get out of the line of fire. This is the marquis action sequence in the movie.
Spielberg, once again, calls upon cinematographer, Janusz Kamiński, a collaborator on many of the director’s hits, to shoot nerve wracking scenes embellished with screeching metal in 35 mm. And the director also convinced the legendary John Williams to put off retirement, once again, to compose a score expressing from excitement to empathy in their 30th film together.
We found some real continuity problems in this film. During a chase scene, Daniel and Margaret jump out of a car before it goes over a cliff. Wardex henchmen think they’re dead but don’t check for footprints in case they got away. And there is much confusion over all the different tech devices never explained. You don’t know what does what. And why didn’t more people recognize Meteorologist Margaret from TV as she as being chased around town? And it doesn’t flow well, hopping around from character to character trying to follow how they eventually intertwine.
Emily Blunt carries this film. But Spielberg’s aliens look like cousins of those we’ve before. It just takes too long for that disappointing payoff. Spielberg knows how to get reaction out of action, but to us, Disclosure Day felt like a cover up.
Universal Pictures. 2 hour 25 minutes PG 13
