Disclosure Day - The Return of Steven Spielberg to the Alien Genre Albeit in a Less Action Approach

This was another movie that was released mid of the week in Indonesia. I never saw its trailer before and had no idea of what the film was about, but the name Steven Spielberg and the genre alien was enough to make me wanted to see it. So yesterday my wife and I went to the studio not far from our home. It was a sudden change of plan cause my favorite cinema stopped playing the film after just 2 days. Anyway let us dive into it now.

Brief Story Line (warning possible spoiler)

Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor - Wake Up Dead Man: A Knive's Out Mystery, The Mastermind etc) was a cybersecurity expert working for an organization within the US government. He somehow found out information about aliens which he wanted to share the world. However Daniel's plan was disrupted when his boss Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth - Young Sherlock TV series, Mary Poppins Returns etc) was aware and tried to capture him and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson - The Perfect Couple mini series, Flora and Son etc) to avoid having chaos around the world. 

Meanwhile Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt - The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Adjustment Bureau etc) who worked at a TV station suddenly experienced something beyond imagination which worried her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell - Monarch: Legacy of Monsters TV series, The Woman in the Window etc). Noah who got hold of the info also assigned his agents to catch Margaret.

So what would happen to all of them and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, I did not have any info about the movie and the synopsis was so brief that it was unclear. However I did suspect that it might be dramatic instead of full sci-fi action. Turned out my guess was almost correct as the movie was having plenty of drama & felt a bit philosophical as well for me, though it still have some well executed action scenes. To be honest, the beginning of the movie was not exactly easy to understand and require full concentration to get hold of it. But slowly with more information revealed, my wife and I were finally able to grasp what the story was about.

Things actually became a lot more interesting with the appearance of Margaret. She was the real star of the film cause everytime she appeared, somehow the film felt really alive and intriguing. What she experienced also raised our curiosity which made us kept looking forward to her story. Meanwhile Daniel's part was OK and his portion was the one that had more action and intensity. Obviously things became more exciting when they all met and the actual intention of everybody was clear. The suspense was maintained quite steadily with the constant chase by Noah and his agents to capture Daniel and Margaret. However there were also quite a lot of times when some drama were inserted with thought provoking dialogues. The final third was pretty good and satisfying with the last scene which did not surprise us at all.

Steven Spielberg is a very well known name in Hollywood for directing sci-fi films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Ready Player One etc, although his recent movies were drama. Hence his return to the alien story was exciting for me. However, this was not the full action kind that might satisfy people looking for such (it's not even up to the level of War of the Worlds). In here Spielberg opted for a more grounded approach of exploring things that have been viral nowadays of the alien existence. The movie itself was based on screenplay by David Koepp who frequently wrote for Spielberg films like The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and few others, plus several hit movies such as Mission: Impossible etc.

In addition to the above names, the film also had some support cast like Colman Domingo (Michael, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts etc) as Daniel's colleague Hugo, Henry Lloyd-hughes (The Thursday Murder Club, Killing Eve season 2 etc) as Noah's head of security Boyd, Elizabeth Marvel (Presumed Innocent TV series, News of the World etc) as Sister Maura and few others. Aside from Emily Blunt who received praise for her role here, I also thought Colin Firth was pretty awesome. Critics were understandably positive about the movie as it should be as the story telling was wonderful and the intensity was kept till the end. However, fans of full action or a simpler plot like me and my wife might not be as satisfied. Not sure if its box office performance will be great either as it required due to its high production budget. In Indonesia not a lot of people saw this which would explain the decreasing amount of studios playing it. But perhaps there were more audience who would embrace this in the US.

Btw it has a long duration of 145 minutes without any mid or post end credit scene which could also make some people felt tired. To my surprise, the studio where I saw this film had a very good sound system and the sound effects were totally amazing. They certainly increased my experience especially during the occassional suspenseful scenes. So if you are hoping for a high octane sci-fi action alien movie from Spielberg, then high chance you won't be too satisfied with the film as it has strong drama element plus a rather open-end. But if you are OK with what the movie's intention and just enjoy the story telling plus watching Emily Blunt's performance (which could sometime give you laughter), then you might really love this just like most critics. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars