Welcome to Earth

Early on in Disclosure Day a character is told not to, under any circumstances, release the world changing information he has on the internet. For the masses to accept the truth, the reveal must be a carefully orchestrated, communal event. That's because this alien conspiracy thriller is a film about how important it is to tell a story the right way. There aren't many people more qualified to make such a statement than Steven Spielberg.

Josh O'Connor plays Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity expert who has stolen evidence of alien visitation from his employers and is trying to get it into the hands of his colleague, Coleman Domingo's Hugo so they can blow the doors off years of cover ups. Meanwhile, TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is finding she can speak multiple languages, including one that seems to be non-human, and finds herself compelled to find Daniel. Chasing after them is shady suit Noah Scanion (Colin Firth) and his security team. These events take place against a backdrop of military tension in Korea that may be about to set off WWIII.

This plot in itself is nothing spectacular. It's a fairly standard conspiracy driven story of getting from point A to point B while some bad guys periodically arrive to make things complicated. There is obviously a sci-fi bent to proceedings but neither the science or big picture ideas on display are anything new. Events rely on leaps of faith and magical MacGuffins to pan out how the script desires. Turns out none of that really matters though, as any hint of things feeling tired or played out are washed away by a tidal wave of Spielbergness.

Firstly, outstanding direction breathes life into what could have been the slower parts of the movie. Dynamic camera movement and a well-lit, realistic visual style propel scenes of the characters doing mundane things. Great visual blocking means dialogue heavy scenes don't stall the pace of the movie and attention to detail adds to the atmosphere. When a bewildered regular Joe is told to reverse his car over a mobile phone, he takes a couple of attempts to get the job done.

The other big Spielberg indicator is a gigantic helping of anti-cynicism. In this world the possibility of alien life is treated with wonder, knowledge is not the enemy of faith and empathy is the ultimate form of evolution. This isn't (as some people were guessing) a sleeper sequel to one of his sci-fi classics, but it very much shares their soul.

A stellar cast helps get the message across. Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt are predictably fantastic leads, Colin Firth's well-spoken charm makes him a surprisingly effective corporate villain and there aren't many people better at delivering a rousing monologue than Coleman Domingo. There are also solid supporting performances from Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell as the partners of the two leads. Hewson's character brings a religious perspective to extraterrestrial life and a bemused Russel just wants to know what the hell is going on.

The one Spielberg factor that, kind of, works against the film is the ultra American focus. Despite the world altering stakes and backdrop of global peril, everything takes place in the US. In fact, given how quickly characters catch up with each other, it feels like we are only ever in one little part of the country. It's a thriller rather than a typical summer blockbuster so the lack of scale doesn't hurt the moment to moment action, but it does make the story feel smaller than it should.

Still, any issues don't stand up to the craft and sheer optimism in humanity on display here. Even if you find old school Spielberg hard to balance against the current state of the world you have to admire that his answer to "would people really believe all this?" is, "they would if I was in charge of telling them".

8 nighttime trips into the woods out of 10.

Comments

Star Scuffle

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is perhaps the purest distillation of a problem the franchise has had ever since the end of the original trilogy. The inability to expand the scope of its story. Commercially, it became a world devouring behemoth, but in terms of narrative it has never moved past (on the big screen anyway) those first films. George Lucas delivered a prequel trilogy that showed us how we got to his 1977 original. Disney's new trio of movies ended up amounting to little more than bringing the gang back and adding some new faces to the hamster wheel. They also gave us a couple of spin-off films dedicated to filling in unimportant details of the classic adventures. Eventually, a sprawling galaxy far, far away starts to look pretty small. Now their return to cinemas after a (much needed) seven year break is a lengthened episode of a TV show that exists because one of the characters in the original films looked pretty cool. With a laboured structure (there are three...

Rooms Got Back

Backrooms was never likely to struggle financially. The last couple of years have taught us that if you can turn Gen Z out, box office success tends to follow. Given the viral subject matter (more on that later) a younger audience were always likely to show up in more than enough numbers to turn a profit on a moderately budgeted horror film. The question facing studio A24 and 20 year old (yes that's right, 20 year old) director Kane Parsons was what to do with the free hit. Do you double down on the premise in order to satiate the TikTok crowd? Or do you layer on the themes and character in order to create an "elevated" horror more in keeping with the A24 brand? It seems they were never quite able to commit to one approach or the other and the final product falls unsatisfyingly in between. For those unaware of the Backrooms phenomenon, it began life as a creepypasta, modern folklore where people share an unsettling picture online and create stories around it. The idea wi...

He-Management

A second Masters of the Universe movie (after the 1987 Dolph Lundgren vehicle) has been on the docket for a long time, with directors from John Woo to Jon M. Chu attached and rights bouncing around various studios. The success of Barbie (another Mattel property) is likely the reason this iteration of the project has finally made it to screens. While a look at what constitutes modern masculinity means it does share a little in common with its pink dappled cousin, it mostly just contents itself with being the most sincerely dumb summer blockbuster you can imagine. Nicholas Galitzine plays Adam, the Prince of Eternia, sent to Earth as a child to escape the skull-faced villain Skeletor (Jared Leto) who has conquered our hero's homeland. Fast forward fifteen years, and Adam is now a friendly Human Resources worker freaking out potential dates by telling them he is the long lost prince to a land of magic and wonder. Finally finding the "Sword of Power" he dropped on hi...

The Bourne IT

The set up for The Amateur is a well worn one, a man loses his wife in a terrorist attack and goes on a mission of revenge. The twist is, that while Rami Malek does play a man with a particular set of skills, they aren't the ones you would expect. Charlie Heller is a socially awkward CIA cryptographer with precisely zero fighting ability and no experience using firearms. He is though, a technological genious who invented half the agencies cyber security and can track and predict patterns like a computer. When his blatantly shady boss, played with smug glee by Holt Mccallany, refuses to act on Charlie's info about the killers he blackmails him for some training and the green light to pursue the perpetrators himself. The two main questions are, can the mild mannered tech guy thrive in the field and is this twist on the formulae enough to carry a fairly by the numbers espionage thriller? The answer to both is, pretty much, yes. Malek is tailor made for roles like this and it'...

I Got Bombs But I'm Not a Bomber

Oppenheimer posed a tricky question for perennial hit maker Christopher Nolan. How do you make a three hour biopic of a scientist compelling enough to bring in big money? Turns out the answer is to not make a biopic at all. While J. Robert Oppenheimer is indeed the focus of the film it eschews any traditional biopic format, instead serving up what is essentially a heist or even sports movie wrapped up in a courtroom drama. This allows the director to indulge his favourite hobby of playing with time, as the story jumps between two different panel hearings while also covering Oppenheimer's early career and of course the work of the Manhattan Project. This approach works incredibly well with the three hour runtime flying by. In fact, if you go to see this in the cinema you might want to skip the large cola as there really isn't any time when little enough is happening to sneak in a toilet brake. Technically the film is outstanding. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, follo...

Thunderbolts and Lightning, Mental Health is Frightening*

Thunderbolts* takes a bunch of relatively minor MCU characters and scoops them up into a "Suicide Squad" type adventure where they face off against insurmountable odds. Given most of the characters have appeared in TV shows, there is a distinct whiff of Disney+ about proceedings but it is also one of the most solid films Marvel has put out in years. The execs must have known they had something decent on their hands as they waited until a whole weekend after release to spoil the end twist with marketing, as appose to doing it in the trailers. The titular Thunderbolts are : New Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), failed Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell), former Winter Soldier turned congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Russian super soldier and Yelena's adoptive father Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ant Man 2 alumni Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and maybe mysterious newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman). If you follow MCU events you will recognise ...

Listening to the Sounds in Silence

The tagline for breakout indie horror hit Undertone is, "The Scariest Movie You'll Ever Hear". This declaration sets out the film's stall as a uniquely audio based horror, and that is exactly what it delivers. The result is something that will chill some people to the bone and leave others falling asleep in their seats. Originally made for a meagre $500,000, the film takes place entirely in one location (director Ian Tuason's childhood home) and centres on podcaster Ivy, played with impressive range by Nina Kiri. Ivy is caring for her dying mother (the only other person who appears onscreen) so has to wait until the early hours of the morning to record her paranormal podcast with friend Justin (the voice of Adam DiMarco). She plays the role of sceptic to Justin's believer but her rationality is tested when her cohost begins playing some eerie audio files he received from an anonymous listener. Although Undertone isn't a found footage film, it very much t...

There Can Only be One

Trailers for Him had Jordan Peele's name slapped all over them, which is understandable from a marketing point of view. In reality it is simply produced by the"Get Out" directors company, Monkeypaw Productions. It is actually directed by Justin Tipping, from a script he co-wrote with Skip Bronkie and Zak Akers. The prevalence of Peele's name in the advertising means the film is bound to draw unflattering comparisons with his own work, which is a shame as the film has its own merits. Cameron "Cam" Cade (Tyriq Withers) grew up idolising Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), star quarterback of the San Antonio Saviours. When White suffers a grisly injury during the Super Bowl, Cade's father tells the young fan that real men like his idol make sacrifices for greatness. Fast forward about a decade and a half and Cam is about to be drafted to the NFL, where he is tipped as a potential challenger to White's "Greatest Of All Time" status. When a mascot in ...

Dorothy goes Toto

Pearl is a hard film to define and really benefits from the viewer knowing as little about it as possible heading in. That said, it is a prequel to 2022 's X focusing on a crucial couple of days in the youth of murderous old lady Pearl so it isn't a family friendly caper. The vast majority of the film takes place in the same farm location as X but grindhouse grime is replaced with golden age Hollywood technicolor, giving everything a completely different look and feel. Pearl dreams of breaking into early Hollywood pictures and the opening scenes here could be straight out of The Wizard of Oz. The film looks stunning, in sharp contrast to the misery of young Pearl's life. She had thought her husband was a ticket off her family farm but now he is fighting in World War I, leaving Pearl to help her overbearing mother run the homestead and care for the disabled family patriarch. Complicating things further are a nasty global pandemic and the fact they are German immigrants. A ...

Big City Slashing

Scream 6 is a definite improvement over last years weak entry in the franchise. In fact Scream 2022 now feels like a modestly budgeted water tester, putting the stabers out to see if there was appetite for a proper sequel. Things start with a bang, the introduction being the most interesting flip on the standard opening kill to date and from there its clear there is a cleqr sense of ambition about preceedings. Relocating to New York gives everything a fresh feel and a sense of scope that the last entry lacked with the film making good use of the opportunity to see a Ghostface acting differently. Rather than lurk in the shadows the killer can now hide in plain site and this iteration of the stabby Munch fan has some great dialogue and physicality. They also deliver some of the most graphic slayings a Scream outing has seen. Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega return as the Carpenter sisters and put in good performances even if the tension between them feels forced. There are issues...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog