The newest Steven Spielberg sci-fi film, Disclosure Day, holds a lot of potential and displays his usual filmmaking prowess, but the story and ultimate message fall flat. A lack of logic and an overabundance of unearned drama overshadows any earnest theme about humanity or its capacity.
Disclosed by Mallet
I’m gonna start this discussion at the end, because I think the film Disclosure Day loses everyone at approximately the third act, slipping like sand through Spielberg’s fingers until the final moment of disclosure. All I can say is that Spielberg is lucky his movie didn’t get any traction with the youth, because this movie would have been absolutely reamed by Tiktok and Twitter editors and comedians.
As spoiled by its own trailers, the big disclosure item was aliens. We got aliens up in this bitch. The characters initially pose the question pretty well, “Is humanity ready for the realization that we’re not alone in the universe, and if I know, should I be the one to tell everyone?” This premise is framed by rising international conflicts, which isn’t necessarily any more or less topical than any other framing device. Where Spielberg shows his age instead is in his steadfast belief, as underlined by the third act of the film, that people still watch the news diligently.
See, rather than grappling with the moral question raised by the movie, our characters move ahead with their plan to tell everyone about the aliens. By the end, even the skeptical girlfriend and the evil corporation man just sit back- literally, the dude just takes a seat and dismisses his goons- as the protagonists go on air. The newslady who narrates through the rest of the film seems like she’s putting on her best acting performance, but all I could think was this one scene in Spiderman 3
So instead of making the climax some sort of display of the various answers people may have, like, “wtf no this changes nothing I still wanna bomb the Chinese!” to “Holy shit my god is fake!” to “holy crap I’m going through a psychotic break and I hate that you people forced this on me!”, we just get a melodramatic montage of really crappy alien BTS.
Illogical Day
I kind of alluded to the lack of logic earlier, but it really pulled me out of the movie. I mean, in a sci fi, we’re expected to have some suspension of disbelief accept that it’s just a movie. But for something as grounded as Disclosure Day, made by a guy like Spielberg, you’re not gonna excuse poor choices and logic by your characters.
Choices like, say, the girlfriend choosing to accompany her relatively new boyfriend on his adventure even though she was literally just kidnapped and tortured by a shadow government. That’s fine, whatever, women by hysterical amirite? Then we get dumb shit, like the goons being totally inept. At one point, a car goes off a cliff, and everyone just crowds the edge instead of looking around like, 20 feet in any direction and simply just looking behind a big boulder. Or investigating the sound of people stomping through the bush just to the side. Fine. Excused.
But what about the final moment, where the main bad guy descends with his entire shadow government’s army (a total of 20 dudes), and waits directly outside the floor to ceiling glass walls of the TV station to watch the protagonists prep their broadcast. Sure, he’s got a decent plan to stop them by taking them off the main grid and sabotaging their backup generator. But if his goal is to stop the public from finding out about aliens, why not just start shooting people? Or at the least, tackling them and breaking the cameras? You may argue it’s because Emily Blunt’s character has telepathic powers, but they already know how to beat her.
See, the first big logic break happens when Blunt storms the base where her psychic twin/brother/partner is being held by the shadow government, and unwittingly uses her powers on every single person on the base one by one. She ‘impersonates’ someone intimate to her target, says something only that person would know or say, and stuns her target temporarily. Dead wives, little kids, old men, etc. But like, anyone in their right mind would be like, “Wow you made me hallucinate my dead daughter, this is definitely some freak shit and you should absolutely not be allowed to walk out of here calmly in a brightly painted Alfa Romeo Giulia!” In that scene they figure out that if she makes eye contact she can do her little magic shit, but instead of just covering their eyes with a visor or something, they just decide that she’s unstoppable. Verbally.
Post-Disclosure
This movie left me with some odd emotions. If I had been looking forward to it, or if I had been hyped for it, the let-down would have left an impact. But I just didn’t care, and only went to see if it would be as magical as we’re promised Spielberg can be. So I mostly just forgot it. I wasn’t even mad. I just didn’t care.
Will some people like it? I mean maybe. But that third act is god-awful and I think I’d have to look very hard to find someone who was completely satisfied with this movie and all of its parts. I feel safe rating Disclosure Day
BAD
I watched Disclosure Day in theaters, and I’m sure it’ll be streaming somewhere soon. Probably on the TNT channel because apparently Spielberg thinks people still watch shit on there.
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