I saw the M Rated
'DISCLOSURE DAY' earlier this week at my local multiplex, and this American Science Fiction film is based on an original story, Co-Produced and Directed by Steven Spielberg, who I'm sure needs no introduction. Spielberg is no stranger to the world of Sci-Fi having helmed
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' in 1977, then
'E.T.' in 1982,
'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' in 2001,
'Minority Report' in 2002,
'War of the Worlds' in 2005 and
'Ready Player One' in 2018. This film saw its Premiere screening in Paris early this month, went on world wide release last week, has generated positive critical reviews and has so far recovered US$121M at the global Box Office from a production budget of US$115M.
The film begins with a staged wrestling match, and in the audience sits Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) watching nonchalantly, while the rest of the crowd rise to their feet enthusiastically to cheer on the champion. From behind a man pulls a revolver and jabs it into Kellner's side, telling him to stand up and release his back pack next time the crowd stands and cheers. He does so, the back pack is removed and he is taken outside. It is quickly revealed that Kellner is a cybersecurity specialist who up until that day had spent the prior eight years working for the Wardex Corporation, a secret arm of the US government, and that he had stolen a piece of extraterrestrial technology and dozens of related files, detailing various events of human and alien contact dating back to the Roswell incident, some 79 years ago, and right up to the very recent past. Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) discovers the theft and has Daniel branded a foreign spy, making him the target of federal authorities. Once outside, Scanlon and Kellner come face to face, but Kellner is able to thwart his would be captors by revealing that he is in possession of one of three very powerful alien devices, and so Scanlon reluctantly chooses to let him go. He goes into hiding at a convent with his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson), a former noviciate of the convent before she lost her calling three years earlier.
Meanwhile, in Kansas City, television meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is preparing for work at home when a cardinal bird flies in through her kitchen window, briefly observes her, and is then chased away through the window by Margaret's boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell), a jobbing musician. The incident awakens latent psychic abilities, so giving Margaret the ability to understand the thoughts and emotions of others, and unconsciously converse in foreign languages she has never learned.
After the two news anchors have finished their story of an imminent World War III currently unfolding, they cross to Margaret's live weather broadcast, during which she unexpectedly begins speaking in an unknown language, and then collapses on the studio's stage. Footage of the broadcast goes viral and draws the attention of Wardex, which identifies the language as extraterrestrial in origin. After being hospitalised and nearly captured by Scanlon's agents, Margaret also goes into hiding with Jackson in tow.
Having been extracted from the convent by Dave Santiago (Tommy Martinez) and taken to a remote safe house, Kellner reveals the stolen files to Jane, explaining that Wardex has been experimenting on live alien captives and reverse engineering their technology for years, and states his intention to make the information public, and how the world deserves to know the truth. Jane while horrified by the footage seen on the laptop, is reluctant to broadcast this news to the world because of her religious beliefs. Kellner learns of Margaret and discovers that he is the only one who can understand the alien language she spoke in the broadcast.
Through one of the three alien devices that grants him telepathic capabilities, Scanlon forms a psychic bond with Jane and uses it first to make her attempt to kill Daniel and to track them to the remote safe house, and then to track them to a hotel. Jane escapes with the alien device in Kellner's possession, but Kellner is captured. Meanwhile, as her abilities evolve, Margaret has visions of him and follows them to a black site where he is being held.
They escape when Margaret learns how to use her abilities to empathetically influence their pursuers into standing down. Scanlon's head of security Casper Boyd (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), intentionally rams their car into the side of a passing speeding freight train, and the pair are dragged along in their vehicle by the train into the path of an oncoming train. Kellner pulls Margaret out just in time for them to climb onto the train and make their way to safety. Margaret has a panic attack once inside the safety of a carriage, and Kellner calms her down.
Margaret and Kellner are rescued by a team of a dozen or so Wardex employees who have become whistleblowers. Their leader, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), who has been working with Kellner and in regular communication with him, shelters them in a warehouse containing a near exact reconstruction of Margaret's childhood home and encourages her to recover suppressed memories connected to the extraterrestrial phenomenon.
Inside, Margaret remembers that she and Kellner were both abducted by extraterrestrials as ten year old children and subjected to experiments that gave them their powers. Kellner was given almost superhuman mathematical capabilities which made him a shoe-in for his cyber security role at Wardex recruited by Wakefield. And Margaret was bestowed with the ability to speak and understand any language and taps into people's minds. She also learns that the unusual animals that have appeared throughout their lives are extraterrestrials, assuming harmless forms to observe them, such as a moose, a fox, a racoon and that cardinal bird.
Margaret and Kellner, accompanied by Wakefield and the other whistleblowers, return to Margaret's television studio to make a public broadcast they name 'Disclosure Day'. Scanlon and his team arrive en masse and attempt to halt their broadcast, disabling the power grid and the station's backup generator, but Jane arrives and gives her device to Margaret, who uses it to restore the power. Defeated, Scanlon decides to watch instead of continuing to stop them, but Boyd leaves in anger, with most of his team leaving with him. The transmission reveals to the stunned world historical evidence of alien encounters and the ensuing government cover-ups. As the broadcast reaches a global audience, halting the imminent war, the whistleblowers reveal one of the extraterrestrials, whom they freed. The alien privately communicates a message to Kellner, who is the only one who understands their language as though it is English, who in turn relays it to Margaret. With the world transfixed to their TV screens and their phones and computers, Margaret prepares to deliver the alien message, saying, 'Listen'.
With '
Disclosure Day' here Director Spielberg has delivered his audience another masterful story that could act as a companion piece to his seminal 1977 movie
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. While this film doesn't quite reach those same lofty heights, what it does deliver is a thrilling chase movie laced with plenty of expertly choreographed action sequences, conspiracy theories, emotional heft, and perhaps a career best performance from Emily Blunt, and while we're at it Josh O'Connor puts in a convincing turn too. Make no mistake, this is a blockbusting effort from the master storyteller, that will have pondering over that timeless question of whether we are alone in the infinite universe, and if ever, or whenever, the truth does eventually come out, will we be prepared for it and what will the consequences be? See it on the big screen, you won't be disappointed, and at a run time of 145 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome.
'Disclosure Day' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
