Directed By Steven Spielberg

Starring – Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth

The Plot – If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to… Disclosure Day.

Rated PG-13 for action/violence, some bloody images and strong adult language.

Disclosure Day | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Even at the tender twilight age of 79, Spielberg still proves himself to be among the most gravitationally compelling filmmakers of this or any generation, utilizing all of his signature aesthetic choices to render a mesmerizingly luminating presentation in the specifics of each and every frame. Everything from meaningfully layered framing techniques, to lens flares, to even smoothly cerebral motions of the lens, gifts us an effortlessly indulging opportunity to approach the dissecting explorations of this story with as much intensity and introspection as the camera can possibly convey, particularly among Steven’s most ambitiously urgent action sequences, executed as practically and safely as humanly possible. This doesn’t necessarily make Disclosure Day an action film, as consistently it beats more to a science-fiction and dramatic underlining, but it does articulate the automobile choreography and seamless symmetry in the immersion of what’s depicted, all as a means of rendering the vulnerability factor of those involved, and considering these are the most memorably scenes of the film’s nearly two-and-a-half hour engagement, it proves Spielberg’s desire to facilitate conflict in a film driven by inevitability, in turn conjuring these elaborately enticing set pieces that are impressive by the scope and spectacle of their spontaneous orchestration. If this isn’t enough, Spielberg still wallows in the sentimentally stirring tendencies that have overwhelmed some of his more recent films, but here is kept firmly in check without anything even closely resembling melodramatic or saccharine, perhaps as a means of incorporating some much needed comedic levity in between scenes stitched together by suppressed memories. The comedy itself isn’t persistent enough to take attention away from the importance of the established conflict, nor is it executed with the kind of scene-halting influence to make this feel compromisingly cinematic in the least believable ways conceivable, instead opting for the kind of situational honesty that feels authentic to the ways that any of us would respond to attempting to grapple with something so life-altering. Beyond Spielberg’s irreplaceable presence behind the lens, the themes that he and fellow co-writer and longtime collaborator David Koepp inflict in front of it gives the movie a stirringly sentimental conscience that feels well aware of its similarities in the depicted world to ours, offering a refreshingly grounded approach to science-fiction and extra-terrestrial movies, which makes the established conflict feel all the more relatable. While the script undeniably has a hoard of unforeseen problems that eventually detracted in my investment towards the film, thematic impulses pertaining to the aftershock of religion and government offer several thought-provoking insights on the unavoidable realities of the confirmation of another species, all the while on the eve of a World War III conflict with Russia and North Korea. Because Spielberg has always been someone who implements cautionary messages to the audience in the depths of his films, it’s easy to coherently interpret his desire to appraise an immensity of value to empathy and understanding that serve not only as the bridging resolution to this Earth-shattering enacting, but also the key to the grave disconnect persisting from beyond the screen, aimed entirely at a cruel and punishing world that has lost sight of the corresponding humanity that binds us. Driving this cause is a remarkably career-defining performance from Emily Blunt at the helm of the movie’s narrative, where her adaptability towards emotional versatility is put to the test in a commanding turn that is undeniably second to no one in this gifted ensemble. While a majority of the assembled names are unfortunately relegated to thankless roles that do little to solidify their impactful influence over the proceedings, Blunt bestows an evidential transformation towards Margaret that surmises as a result of the undefinable forces that guide her, where Blunt not only sifts naturally throughout a wide variety of sensibilities, ranging anywhere from frantically overwhelmed to confidently calm in the possession of her personality, but also a thickly prominent layering of emotionality during the third act climax that hinges entirely on the fear and reluctance of Margaret receiving such perplexing power among her peers. For my money, Blunt shines the brightest during possessive scenes incorporating foreign dialect to the air of her distinguished dialogue, where Emily’s accents and patterns effortlessly attain the kind of necessary experience as someone who has spoken it for decades, without anything even closely resembling intrusive inconsistency to serve as a glaring flaw to the perfection she candidly delivers here. If anyone even comes close to the magnitude of Blunt’s domination, it’s easily Eve Hewson, whose brief-but-memorable showcase scene finds her under the intense duress of having no control over her actions. As a result, Hewson is able to convey as much internalized turmoil and vulnerability with her eyes, in order to find an empathetic connection with the endearment of the audience, and while her character ultimately and unfortunately serves as a device to drive the movie’s development, Eve conveys a stirring soulfulness to her portrayal that makes her nonetheless memorable in her lack of time limitations, offering a solid follow up to her unblinking resiliency on Flora and Son, to prove she’s anything but a one trick pony.

NEGATIVES

If the film has one glaring problem responsible of the many detracting elements that make up its finished product, it’s definitely in the aforementioned script from Spielberg and Koepp, the likes of which has been thoroughly documented as being re-written 45 times by the latter. This creative plowing over certainly feels evident in the ways it prematurely wipes out supporting characters at the drop of a hat, but also in the ways it feels like key pieces to the storytelling are missing from its finished draft, felt as heavily obvious as the movie’s opening act. While I love a storyteller who wastes little time setting the movements to motion, there’s a complete lack of character introduction with Josh O’Connor’s Daniel, that makes it feel like a movie halfway in progress that we’ve unceremoniously intruded upon, and it left me a bit dejected for longer than I expected in attempting to connect and invest faithfully in these characters, in turn leaving the transparency of the dialogue to work overtime in shoe-horning as many characterizing aspects as possible to capably fill in the blanks. While the protagonists are left to play catch-up, the antagonist army of governmental officials prove how little Spielberg’s opinion of this evil entity has evolved since constructing E.T in 1982, where these powerful adversaries are as conveniently clumsy and conquerable as Harry and Marv in the first two Home Alone movies. I make that bitingly honest comparison because they always feel like more of a threat while chasing Daniel and Margaret than they do when they have them firmly in their grasp, and with the assistance of an undefined plot device making anything information that they seek feel effortlessly attainable, it raised more unanswered questions than resolved answers with my periodic curiosity of the device, an unforeseen difficulty that Koepp shows no desire to even attempt to alleviate. Aside from the pratfalls of this plunging screenplay, the nearly two-and-a-half hour runtime was also a major problem in keeping me endeared to the exploration of the storytelling, especially considering the editing feels so laid back and lackadaisical compared to some of Spielberg’s most recent films. The reason for this inconsistency is the absence of Spielberg’s longtime editing collaborator, Michael Kahn, who is optioned here for Sarah Broshar, and while I’m not entirely blaming Sarah for the lack of manufactured momentum to keep this story intriguing between acts, I am blaming her for an opening act that drowns on insufferably far longer than expected in getting this film off to the necessary bang to peak my curiosity, an established precedent that might remotely improve with time, but doesn’t take away the pressure of patience in attempting to keep from checking your watch, where the first of four occasions left me with an entire hour left to extinguish. Finally, while the production’s technical components each flourish something vitally integral to the atmospheric energy, the periodic utilizing of C.G.I wildlife is the single glaring flaw in an otherwise perfect presentation, featuring these laughably limber artificial deposits that feel outdated even by 2010 standards. These scattered usages are forgivable at least during the opening half of the movie, where they’re only rendered for a few seconds at a time, however once the climax of the movie resorts to uncovering the suppressed traumas of its character’s pasts, it requires seemingly animated properties to involve more of the rigid motions to stand out unappealingly, leaving it one of the very few flaws that still unfortunately permeate in Spielberg properties.

OVERALL
Disclosure Day is far from the most entertainingly memorable or consistently executed 21st century Steven Spielberg film, but it is a science-fiction thriller that succeeds on delivering both of those conjoining categorical ingredients, in turn breeding the kind of dizzying summertime spectacle that the distinguished director carved a legacy out of. While the overlong runtime eviscerates any semblance of urgency from the enticement of the narrative, especially alongside stock governmental antagonists hot on our heroes trail, it is an exceptionally shot and thought-provoking commentary on the vitality of higher masters, allowing Spielberg to champion a companion piece to the same extraterrestrial stories that he helmed nearly fifty years ago.

My Grade: 6.8 or C+