Even when writing this review I had to keep checking the name in brackets above. Yes, this really is a Spielberg joint.
Disclosure Day is a sci-fi flick based around the idea that aliens exist, a shadowy conspiracy (led by Colin Firth) is hiding that fact while trying to exploit their technology and a whistle-blower (Josh O'Connor) is about to, well, blow the whistle. It is also about a TV weather presenter (Emily Blunt) who sees a red cardinal and instantly develops glossolalia and psychic powers. The weather girl and the whistle-blower are connected by a shared trauma that, we instantly guess, is something to do with alien abduction.
Honestly, this film hurt my head. It opens in media res with Firth apprehending O'Connor's fugitive hacker, but does so so completely free of context and with such poor storytelling that I genuinely wondered if the reels had been shown out of order. This structure makes it hard to care about O'Connor, and having his story intercut with Emily Blunt trying very gamely to act 'psychic' but coming off like Madeline Wool, Alice Lowe's character in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, does not help in the slightest.
Colin Firth is frankly rubbish in this. A phoned-in performance that could've been an email generated by ChatGPT. Wyatt Russell is also in it for some reason.
This film has been in development since 2023, according to Wikipedia. This surprised me because the film feels really Nineties in both its premise and execution. Actually, scratch that second part. Nineties Spielberg would eat this guy's lunch. The plot is weirdly like a Temu X-Files, though. Every cliche gets thrown in the mix, even crop circles, which even the most die-hard conspiracist knows was a couple of drunk lads with a plank.
What makes this all the more maddening is the occasionally well-framed action sequence or interestingly shot fight scene. Little flashes of Spielberg genius that stick out like grains of pure white rice in a sack of dogshit.
No.