Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review, Universal | Tagged: Disclosure Day, emily blunt, steven spielberg

Disclosure Day Review: A Messy Beginning Almost Saved By the Third Act

Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg at his most self-indulgent, with all the good and bad that comes with that.

Disclosure Day takes a while to get going, and some missteps really undercut the message, but things do come together in the end, even if it does feel a bit unearned.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Summary: If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?

When you create the bar, even you might have a hard time surpassing it, and that is something that often happens with projects from director Steven Spielberg. He has defined genres and what it means to make big blockbuster movies for the summer, yet even he sometimes struggles to reach the bar he helped set. However, like other masters, Spielberg's mediocrity is leagues better than what anyone else could put out. Disclosure Day is Spielberg at his most self-indulgent, with all of the good and bad that comes with it. This is the movie about aliens for him, the one that has put the concept to bed for him, and a film that spends large portions of its runtime not really asking if there is life out there, but how the world and humanity would react to the knowledge and confirmation that life is out there.

It's been pretty clear from the first trailers that Disclosure Day is a hard movie to market, and having seen the final film, that is even more apparent. While trailers have done a decent job of making sure that audiences know this isn't an action movie, the film also lacks thrills in many ways. Spielberg has called the movie a "chase film" and says that it "comes out of the gate very fast." For a film that starts in medias res by design, it takes a very long time to find its footing.

The first act and a good portion of the second drag, adding to the pacing issues that make this film feel much longer than its near two-and-a-half-hour runtime. The lack of tension to accompany the chase element of the story makes the first act, and even parts of the second, drag, even as things that should feel thrilling are happening on screen. For all the fast cars and speeding trains, there's something missing that gives any sense of urgency to what is happening.

Urgency is what everyone should have since the framing device of Disclosure Day is that the world is on the precipice of World War III. How do we know that? What was the inciting incident? How are people reacting to this? The film isn't really interesting in that conflict. We hear about it, and then there is one scene where we see the public panic-buying, but aside from that, the film does very little to show what's happening in these events. The film is far more interested in its own mystery regarding the aliens, how our two main characters are connected to the creatures, and getting the information out to the public.

It's a baffling misstep of worldbuilding that you don't usually see from people like Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp. This is (supposedly) a chase movie, and even though that gives you an easy way to show how the world's events are impacting people, there is only one moment when the film takes advantage of it. Aside from that, you'd never know anything of note was happening.

Perhaps it's the lack of thrills or tension that makes the final act feel a bit unearned. With a chase, at the end of it, there is often a sense of relief that you've arrived at a location. Even as everyone comes together for the final act, there isn't any sense of relief when everyone comes together safely. It feels inevitable and not in a good way, once again highlighting the lack of tension throughout most of the first half of the film.

However, that third act might be the saving grace of Disclosure Day and could very well be one of those third acts that improve on a second viewing rather than on the first. As previously stated, this is a hard movie to market, and the third act very much shows why. Whatever tone you think this is going to end with, you're probably wrong, and the third act is the kind of Spielbergian movie magic that people speak of. While it doesn't quite feel earned at times, due to the lack of tension and how long it takes the movie to come together, the direction they choose is either going to captivate audiences or lose them completely. This will likely be one of those films where the responses are fairly extreme one way or another because you're either on board by the time the third act comes around or you're not.

The cast counters any shortcomings in Disclosure Day's writing. Emily Blunt is the standout and the one everyone will be talking about, but Josh O'Connor, Coleman Domingo, and Colin Firth all do an excellent job of giving these characters life, even when the script fails them. Domingo has the most work to do with the least amount of help, but his presence, even when he's not sharing it with the main characters, is one of calm. If there is a story reason for the lack of tension, it's the steady hand that Domingo's Hugo seems to have over everything that is happening. Firth's Noah is a strange character, and the film doesn't know how to handle him. He does terrible things to prevent this leak, but there is also this passivity to him. He's another example of how the film fails to generate tension. He's the one doing the chasing, and he just doesn't come across as someone you really, desperately want to get away from throughout the entire film.

Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg at his most self-indulgent, with all the good and bad that comes with that. The beginning is incredibly messy and slow, even as the film drops you right into what should be considered the action. As it stumbles through the first act and a good portion of the second, the lack of tension becomes increasingly apparent. While things more or less come together in the end, it's going to be one of those divisive third acts. It's clear this is a film that's attempting to say a lot, but only a few words are truly coming through clearly. Those words that do hit hard, but there is still a sense that even Spielberg can't reach the expectations of a Spielberg movie every time.

Disclosure Day

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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6.5/10

Disclosure Day is Steven Spielberg at his most self-indulgent, with all the good and bad that comes with that.

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