I am probably not going to spoil it too much, but I thought I would talk about my recent viewing of Disclosure Day. Overall, I found it 'Meh'. The brief and non-spoiler gist of the movie is "Suppose all that we've heard about aliens were true". So, Roswell happened. Alien autopsies happened. All of it. On "Disclosure Day" we will inform the world. For me, that is the biggest problem of the movie. All of those conspiracy theories have been so fully debunked, that the idea of a grand government conspiracy covering them up, hurts this movie hard.
Emily Blunt's performance is Oscar worthy. She does a lot of heavy lifting in this movie. It is part of the reason that I do not totally hate this movie. There is real interesting and good chemistry between her and Wyatt Russell. Also, there are moments when I think, "Wow! I am going to miss John Williams". In my opinion, those are the big highlights of the movie.
I do not want to knock Josh O'Connor's performance, because he is fine. However, I do not believe for a second that he is some sort of mathematical genius. In fact, I do not believe that his character is even a little smart. Mostly because the screen writers did not make him seem smart. In the movie, he does a bunch of plain old dumb things. Showing a bunch of mathematical symbols on a piece of paper is the only indication of his aptitude. If someone analyses that paper, it would probably turn out to be gibberish. Because, zero attention was given to what a "Mathematical Genius" would actually be like. Josh did not portray one.
Cookie cutter bad guys -- sorry Colin Firth. You root against them only because you are supposed to. Again, they are the giant government conspiracy folks who say things like "The Public is not ready to learn about aliens." How big a load of hooey is that? You strip that away, and the movie falls to ruins. Why is the public not ready? We have been living with "Roswell", "Area 51" and the rest since the late 1940s. We are well past ready.
I am a big fan of Mr. Spielberg. I hear "Spielberg" and I think it is probably good. He gets the benefit of the doubt for most things. This movie is very Spielbergian, but it misses at critical points. (Which is a problem that some of his movies suffer -- see "War of the Worlds") For me, some things will get a pass. However, if you are going to have a "Mathematical Genius", you had better convince me. Otherwise, it takes me out of my suspension of disbelief. Once out, it is hard to bring me back.
If you see it and like it, good for you. I really wanted to. However, if Emily Blunt had not given a tour de force performance, I probably would have hated the movie. So, there you go.
