Steven Spielberg stands among cinema’s greatest directors, having given us some of the most entertaining movies ever made.
Unfortunately, Disclosure Day isn’t one of them.
Released to a strong box-office on June 11, the director’s latest doesn’t even rise to the level of his recent good-not-great offerings (Bridge of Spies, Ready Player One, Catch Me If You Can, etc.).
In fact, with such a strong pedigree — not only the accomplished director, but also a terrific cast, veteran writer and briefly out-of-retirement composer — Disclosure Day struck me as profoundly disappointing.
It’s another alien-visitation movie — a topic Spielberg has addressed in such hits as E.T., Close Encounters and even the more pessimistic War of the Worlds. I’m hesitant to specify much about the story, since previews played it close to the vest.
Suffice it to say that DD somehow has both too much plot, and too little.
It begins with what can politely be described as a cold-start, taking forever to get off the ground while piling on one unexplained mystery after another — with precious little action. (Rather surprising from the man who in Jaws and Raiders gave us two of Hollywood’s most memorable and effective openings.)
Many of these mysteries — in particular, the aliens’ intimate knowledge of our personal lives — are left unaddressed by the up-in-the-air ending; yet despite all this obfuscation, most of the movie is just an overlong chase-scene — and not a very good one at that.
Honestly, the third or fourth time those “scary” black cars pulled up, I laughed out loud. Not once had these villains managed even a smidgen of skill or intelligence in capturing the heroes. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a back door??
One action scene involving a train does recall former Spielberg glories (even as it pays tribute to his early breakthrough — TV’s Duel). But on the whole, you can scarcely believe this is the same director who oversaw the dazzling action of Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and even 2002’s unjustly neglected Minority Report.
And speaking of past glories: Some of my high hopes for DD were inspired by its screenwriter, David Koepp — who penned not only Jurassic Park but also the original Spider-Man, as well as the first Mission: Impossible. Indeed, Koepp’s resume is so impressive that one must blame DD’s failure not on the man credited with the script, but rather on the one who came up with the original story: Spielberg himself.
Happily, DD manages to sidestep boredom with a sensational cast. Emily Blunt, who apparently can do just about anything, is brilliant as a TV meteorologist who suddenly gains unearthly abilities. Colin Firth, still looking sharp at 65, plays the somewhat nuanced bad guy trying to prevent knowledge of the aliens from getting out.
The film also has strong work by Eve Hewson (Bono’s daughter) and Wyatt Russell, son of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell — though its best performance is from the red-hot Colman Domingo as a sympathetic behind-the-scenes hero.
Spielberg’s long-time composer — 94-year-old John Williams — came out of retirement to score the film, though this music doesn’t feel like anything special. Visual effects, on the other hand, are all first-rate — particularly in the final scene.
That striking sequence — with black-and-white footage harking back to Roswell, plus a blink-and-miss-it cameo from Devil’s Tower — pays handsome homage to fifties sci-fi and again invokes some of Spielberg’s former glory.
But after 145 minutes of speeding cars and extraterrestrial gobbledygook, I sure wanted more than a one-word finale.
Google indicates that Spielberg’s next film will be a Western — which would be nice.
He deserves a better ride-into-the-sunset than this.
