Review: "Disclosure Day"

When I first heard about Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, I was hooked -- a movie about someone disclosing all the top-secret UFO files in existence for all the world to finally see, all at once. It’s a moment we’ve all collectively dreamed about, perhaps the greatest revelation in human history, proof that we are not alone in this vast universe and that we might have already been visited by extraterrestrials in the past.

Spielberg has had a life-long fascination with this topic dating back to his high school filmmaking days.  Some have called Disclosure Day the third movie in a feature film trilogy that would also include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  Everyone seems to forget his adaption of War of the Worlds (2005) starring Tom Hanks, which is also about an encounter with otherworldly beings.

So, let’s call Disclosure Day Spielberg’s fourth movie on the subject.

It’s about a Kansas City weathergirl, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and a whistle-blowing, former government employee, Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor).  After a strange encounter with a cardinal that flies into her apartment, Margaret begins speaking in a strange language of vocal clicks while doing a live broadcast (featured in the many movie trailers).  She soon discovers other newly acquired skills including the ability to read minds.

Meantime, Daniel is on the run with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), carrying a backpack full of hard drive data containing all the government’s information about aliens and UFOs, dating back to (and including) the famous Roswell incident.  It is the long-awaited proof that the world has longed to see.  It is also the information the government wants to continue to keep secret at all costs, for fear of the global impact of the shattering revelation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icDuEHSxE-w

Disclosure Day is essentially a chase movie.  The good guys (Margaret and Daniel) trying to escape the bad guys led by a ruthless government agent (Colin Firth).  Their only hope involves the guidance of the leader of an underground resistance group named Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) who is masterminding the release of the government files on a world-changing, worldwide day of disclosure.

Much of Disclosure Day plays like an extended episode of The X-Files.  In addition to the backpack of data, Daniel and Jane also have a mysterious, glowing alien artifact that possesses strange powers.  Essentially, it’s a scaled down version of the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). 

Disclosure Day has many similarities to Close Encounters.  Once again, it’s the journey of a man and a woman searching for the truth about extraterrestrial life.  In this case, both are guided by unexplained mental forces beyond their understanding or control.

In the end, without giving away too much, there is a close encounter remarkably similar to the one in the famous finale of Close Encounters.

The other big reveal includes snippets of film and video the government has reportedly kept under wraps.

They include video footage resembling recently released military images of unexplained phenomena that have appeared on the news, along with more dramatic, completely fictional images created through CGI.  The content ranges from amusing to disturbing.

Remarkably, the shots of the aliens lack the kind of realism one might expect in a big budget, Steven Spielberg production.  They look surprisingly cheesy, in an old-school special effects kind of way, shy of the spectacular, climactic treatment you might have expected in a would-be, summer blockbuster film like this.  It’s a real letdown. 

In general, Disclosure Day falls short of expectations, based on the massive hype generated in the many months of promotional trailers and clips.  It’s a story that teases all the hot button tops like unexplained sightings, alien abduction, mysterious crop circles and the trove of evidence about crashed flying saucers and their otherworldly occupants we suspect the government has had in its possession for decades.

To its credit, Disclosure Day features one of the most dramatic train sequences in modern cinema, beginning at a railroad crossing (yet another element borrowed from Close Encounters) where one of the bad guys tries to push the protagonists’ car into a speeding freight train. 

Interestingly, the Cecil B. DeMille’s train wreck sequence from The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) inspired the young Steven Spielbert to become a filmmaker.  He reportedly tried to recreate the scene with his Lionel train set after he returned home.  His obsession with the scene finally comes to fruition in Disclosure Day, in a show-stopping montage sequence for the ages—one that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of.

Sadly, Disclosure Day doesn’t take us much beyond what we already know about the existence of aliens and whether they have already visited the earth (to paraphrase the X-Files, the truth is still out there).  It just cashes in on our burning, never-ending curiosity about whether we are alone in this vast universe. 

Like a carnival side show, it promises to astonish and entertain us.  Instead, it only manages to rehash the basic story of a blockbuster movie Spielberg made 49 years ago, in the hopes that with a little razzle dazzle and some good, old-fashioned, “step right up” showmanship, lightning can strike twice.