I’ve seen a lot of people say that this doesn’t give them that classic Spielberg feeling but for me, it absolutely did.
- Director – Steven Spielberg
- Runtime – 145 minutes
- Certificate – 12A
- Country – United States
Maybe it’s because I’m still young that it helped me feel it more but I don’t know what else to tell you other than I had the biggest grin on my face the entire runtime.
I think despite my enjoyment the actual story and writing were the weakest aspect. The story isn’t anything special or revolutionary but the script treats it as if it is groundbreaking. The whole first act has such a level of secrecy and vagueness surrounding it which did slightly annoy me more than I expected to be annoyed by this film.
For instance Josh O’Connor’s Daniel Kellner would be asked what he did and he’d give the most ambiguous answer you could possibly give. The trailers don’t hide that this film is about aliens so I’m not quite sure why they avoided. Obviously I don’t expect them to show the entire footage of them instantly but acting like it’s something more than what we know it is was certainly a strange choice.
The writing unfortunately carries through the whole film with the dialogue being quite poor at times. The writer is David Keopp so he obviously is no amateur, having written for Spielberg before with Jurassic Park among other films but also he has written Mission: Impossible and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Which it makes it even more confusing and disappointing why the dialogue is so bland. Despite what I said it isn’t particularly bad it’s more just quite surface level. It’s not the type of script you’d expect from someone of that tenure, even if he has written other poor scripts recently with Jurassic World Rebirth and Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny.
Looking past that, I was giddy the entire time and it’s because Spielberg and, long time collaborator DP, Janusz Kaminski are still wizards behind the camera. So many brilliant tracking shot, their use of mirrors and neat composition. Maybe some of the best so far this year. For the most part this felt so much like a Spielberg film to me. That other part was whenever the dodgy cgi was on screen. The scene of young Margaret (Delaney Anne Cuthbert) with the animals in the snow was such a good scene and almost beautiful but the cgi completely takes you out of it.
Besides Spielberg and Kaminski’s magic, Emily Blunt (Margaret Fairchild) is working overtime, lapping everyone around her. Everyone else is still good with O’Connor, Colman Domingo (Hugo Wakefield) and Colin Firth (Noah Scanlon) giving good performances but Blunt is just something else. Without a doubt her best performance of ones which I have watched. Surprisingly a performance that I genuinely thought was the second best was the CNN reporter at the end.
Her reactions to seeing the footage was so real and raw that perfectly captures the themes of humanity.
The payoff you get with the third act is honestly so earned and rewarding. Near the end of the second act I was thinking ‘how are they going to end this?’ Even when they got to the final location I kept thinking ‘there’s no way they end it like this.’ And then after they finished it exactly like that I was completely satisfied with it. It’s so simple and yet its message is so effective. Especially given what is happening in today’s world and the material being released recently.
Disclosure Day is no doubt a divisive entry to Spielberg’s filmography but due to brilliant direction, camera work and fantastic lead performance from Blunt had me giddy like a child again even if the surface level script weighs it down.