This review will contain spoilers
I've never written a movie review before. But I have a personal blog and I want to write!
I walked into the theater only knowing three things: Steven Spielberg, aliens, Emily Blunt. And that's really all this is.
This film's aesthetic is pulled straight out of a late 2000s box office flop. The HQ of the villainous Wardex corporation is a big room covered in camera feeds and floating displays. The main cast possess "advanced tech" like an alien magic wand that only special people can touch and funny looking USBs. The aliens look like the emoji. It all feels so cheap for a movie that cost over a hundred million dollars to make.
The story is not good either. It's a repetitive loop of drive somewhere → dialogue dump → drive somewhere else with streaks of your typical "chosen one(s)" trope. It rarely feels like something happens. When something does happen, it's inconsequential. One character has to flee a motel room on foot and just shows back up at the end. There's another moment where some "good guy agents" accidentally show themselves to the mind-controlling main villain (played by Colin Firth) and nothing happens. Colin Firth's character SHOWS UP AT THE END TO RUIN THEIR PLAN and just gives up!!! What?!?!?
And for a movie so dialogue heavy, the dialogue sucks! It's cliche millennial "erm, did I just do that?" slop.
One exchange goes:
"Who are you?"
smiles warmly "A friend."
Seriously?
You may have heard that some of the performances are pretty good. I hate to say it, but they aren't anything special. Emily Blunt delivers the best performance of the main cast, but Colin Firth's cartoonish villain, Colman Domingo's cliche handler-type, and Josh O'Connor's B-tier hero are low bars to clear. All of them are ultimately outperformed by Courtney Grace as Unnamed NBC Anchor.
The only nice thing I have to say is that the last ~20 minutes were engaging.
I am completely baffled by any mention of an Oscar being awarded to this film. I think if this came out in 2009 (with or without Spielberg's name) it'd be remembered as a movie that came on TV when you were sick.
Obviously, I don't recommend you go see Disclosure Day. The more I think about this film, the less I like it.