‘Disclosure Day’ Grasps at Depth it Never Delivers

Let this be a public service announcement: if you have two-and-a-half hours to spend watching Disclosure Day, do something else.

In an era where questions about government secrecy are rife and excursions beyond the bounds of Earth are increasingly commonplace, Disclosure Day had every opportunity to win audiences over with considerations of extra-terrestrial beings and the ownership of truth, but it’s a flat-on-your-face dud.

Emily Blunt (Sicario, Oppenheimer) stars as Margaret Fairchild, a TV meteorologist who unexpectedly channels alien intelligence while live on air. Her behaviour catches the attention of Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who heads up a corporate-government entity charged with guarding secrets about the existence of alien life on Earth. One of their cybersecurity experts, Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), has already broken ranks to reveal the truth about aliens and teams up with Margaret and other dissenters to disclose everything.

Given director Steven Spileberg’s back catalogue and sci-fi chops, you’d expect Disclosure Day to reach hyped-up expectations, but they remain sorely unmet.

For the majority of its 145-minute run time, Disclosure Day grasps at depth it never quite delivers.

It poses thoughtful questions about how humans would respond to our notion of God being challenged, the possibility of world order being disrupted by another race and whether humanity can really handle connection to the divine but doesn’t explore the answers.

Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) is a former nun and when she finds out what Daniel is doing, her main pushback isn’t about the legalities but that he doesn’t know the implications of potentially undoing people’s structure of belief. We’re taught to trust in a “supreme being”, but what if that being isn’t God? What would that do?

There’s an assumption aliens would be considered divine and not another element of creation, but Margaret’s adamant she “won’t be anyone’s religion”. At one point she’s told the divine always masks its form (appearing as an animal for instance) because humanity couldn’t comprehend confronting it.

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How interesting, should we reveal everything and see if that’s the case? Nope, never mind.

Add to that numerous plot holes and unaddressed elements of the script and Disclosure Day leaves you feeling like the story was important to the characters, but not to the audience looking on.

It’s not until the final 15 minutes Disclosure Day begins the process of disclosure, and safe to say it’s underwhelming. Given we’ve already seen crop circles, green creatures with big eyes and frantic newsrooms concerned about verification, it’s unclear what the filmmakers thought would be particularly revelatory.

Disclosure Day has so many moments of almost saying something of value – including about how governments would treat aliens should they exist – but the only thing it really discloses is that Hollywood still has money to burn.

Disclosure Day is in cinemas today.

Feature image: Supplied