Disclosure Day

I did not enjoy this movie very much. Some good shots, cool set pieces, a strong score, but a bit of a bloated mess that just never came together into anything meaningful.

You follow twin paths of two protagonists, weaving in important parts of their lives that seem to be building toward some kind of grand reveal. But then it basically abandons most pieces that it invests in (e.g. former nun's back story) and fails to turn any of it into anything meaningful (e.g. the house reconstruction). Emily Blunt plays her part well while Josh O'Connor weighs down his parts (similar to Knives Out 3 IMO); and then Colman Domingo is a wise, old... well... a one-note addition that was almost given an interesting story.

The villains were classic paper-thin Spielberg but just that one-dimensional "evil" just felt stupid and ill-fitting in this semi-serious story about life's greatest questions.

It was simply too long with the first half dragging and ultimately leading to nothing and a very different second half. Some of the characters that were prominently featured in the beginning or forgotten about in the second half.

The big set piece, i.e. Spielberg's mechanical shark in this one, was a (second or third) weak chase scene with a laughable train moment that was jarring and stupid looking while being compounded by one of the terrible antagonists.

When it finally started giving some answers, the answers sucked (her house reconstruction, the alien tech, etc.) before suddenly and mercilessly ending with no payoff. And this is despite the alien lore being solid and something that could've actually be built on. So many almost poignant statements or interesting paths that ultimately went nowhere and said nothing.

This is a movie for a certain audience who wants the greatest hits replayed and so I hope they get more out of it than I did.

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