This is the story of a group of people trying to get word out that we are not alone in the universe over the course of several days.
DISCLOSURE DAY disappointed me. Part of it is the trailer implied something that wasn't in the screen, part of it is the fact that the film has plot chasms it keeps tripping over, plus it raises all sorts of issues (such as what happens to religion if get proof that their are aliens) that deserve a film unto thelmselves but instead are given a Cliff Notes exploration, and lastly nothing makes any sense to the point that the film cheats on how its resolved.
Steven Spielberg has a solid basic story but the script just doesn't work. Reducing what should be a deep and thoughtful story to essentially dual chase tales, one the man who stole the proof and the other a weather reporter who begin to act weird, the film strives for forward motion over emotion. There is a wanting to talk about god and aliens and the need for empathy but the film only does so fleetingly. Spielbeg the showman of JAWS, JURASSIC PARK and the Indiana Jones films clashes with the SPielberg who made AI, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, MINORITY REPORT and SCHINDLER'S LIST. The tone of the film is all wrong with tension about whether the characters will survive being undercut with humor. It feels like Spielberg doesn't know how to present things.
The plot construction is lousy. Its a film set in a world at war but which it never gives us any real sense of what that means except in the exact moments that it will affect the plot. There is no world except for the characters in that scene. Crowds are not real people but window dressing. There is no sense of anyone outside of the cast with background characters only going one level deep. No cars pass on busy roads in the city, there is nothing alive pastthe last row of people on screen. Life stops well before the edge of the screen. Things happen that make no sense: why build a house if only a room was important, the villain is the villain until he isn't. More importantly watching the film you quickly realize that there is no danger, that everything will be okay, because Colman Diego not only says it but also because everything happens because "magic". The magic of the aliens will make everything okay despite the bad guys being able to do what they do. It isn't reality its a badly written wish fulfilment fairy tale.
And how it's told is very lazy. Spielberg leans into his 55 year old bag of tricks in such away that this isn't a master at the top of his game but the work of a adequete jourman making an unimaginative film for the suits based upon the work of an earlier director (in this case his earlier self). The opening wrestling sequence, outside of the POV, is staged with zero creativity. Its a by the numbers assembly. Look at the sequences where all the bad guys are chasing the characters or standing around, there is no sense of reality (other than the car flipping on the bridge) or any effort to do anything different than hundred of other films that riffed on what Spielberg had done. This is by the numbers work at best.
The best sequence by far in the whole film is when Colin Firth appears in our hero's girlfriend's mind and she tries to fight him. Its a masterclass in tension. But nothing outide of that in staging or writing works remotely this well.
The CGI mostly looks wrong and fake.
Despite it all it's not a bad film, but at the same time it's no where near what it should be. Honestly the film highlights a problem with Spielberg as a filmmaker in that he doesn't get how a plot should work. Things happen because.... it will be cool or it will get the characters out of a situation. Look at his WAR OF THE WORLDS where the aliens have been underground for centuries just because, or READY PLAYER ONE (pick a moment)nothing feels genuine or if things would happen that way, the Indiana Jones films where things happen for effect, MINORITY REPORT which has plot problems, WEST SIDE STORY where some of his tweaks don't feel as if people, even those in a musical, would do that and others.
The film also highlights how, with very few exceptions Spielberg doesn't want to deal with the bigger, more important issues. You would think that a film about the revelation of alien existence would explore how people would react. Instead the revelation comes at the end and simply results in people staring at their phones. The isue of religion and a large universe is danced around with most of the exploration really left to a few gee whiz statements, which while meaningful, isn't a real exploration but our being force fed. Honestly Spielberg for all his talent will, with the exception of a handful of films (where it should be said he does knock it out of the park), will never ever deal with serious subjects in any seriuous or grity manner.
I wish that someone other than Spielberg had directed the film so that it didn't feel like a Spieberg knock off. I wanted a film that kept me thinking long after it ended, not having me move on to the next thing as soon as the conversation after the filmended and my friend hopped into a cab and I headed to the subway
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