I will see it. This reminds me of Empire of the Sun which was a film that was wonderful till somewhere when it seemed there was an incomplete story. That happens with art. An idea is too big to tie it all together.
I have been thinking that the problem with the movie is that there is too little tension, especially in the early going. The movie is called "Disclosure Day" after all.
There is a lot of good technical work and because I was not engaged as I would have liked, I was able to pay more attention to it. A lot of craftsmanship, but not enough result.
I'll allow you to be wrong, Sonny. Sure, the ending was kind of "shave and a haircut, two bits" but that had to be expected. I didn't feel let down at all.
Just watched it and totally agree with the review. There’s moments where it has an emotional tug but you’re very conscious that it’s not earned- and Williams’ music gets a lot of the credit at those moments. And an actual maguffin, seriously? You have to at least try with sci fi to explain it, you can’t just be ‘here’s an object that does everything righto nothing more to say there’. The actors are good but they’ve little to work with.
Sonny, this review is way too harsh. There are definitely some B movie plot points. What is it with the magical rock things never really gets explained beyond them obviously being alien stuff. But the film is quite explicit about human brutality as the torture of the alien scene shows. The film may end with a call for empathy but it mostly suggests that there is little of it about. Trite is unfair, though maybe there should have been a post credits scene showing all the conspiracy theories that would be about 2 days after disclosure
As a child of the Close Encounters era, you'd think I'd be all over this film, but I have to say the trailers left me totally indifferent. Generally, if you pitched me a movie that had Spielberg, aliens of uncertain intent, excellent actors, a world in turmoil... I *should* be all over that. It's not Spielberg's fault, but I recently slogged my way through the boring-on-steroids series "Invasion," which had humans clicking an alien language and loooong stretches of annoying quasi-mystical mind-melding or something. At least it had explosions. I will likely see "Disclosure Day" eventually, but it is very sad that Sonny's review seems to confirm my instinctive yawning response to the ads.
I will see Disclosure Day because l am a huge fan of Spielberg, believe he is a genius filmmaker/director. I am also a huge fan of Emily Blunt and Colin Firth. Like everything else, some of his movies are better than others. I may be considered a low brow for saying this, but my favorite Spielberg movie is Jurassic Park. I’m 76 now, and when those dinosaurs suddenly appeared running across the big screen so many years ago, l was totally mesmerized. It made me cry. And l had read Michael Crichton’s novel. What an experience! I have watched it several times since, and it is still a thrill.
I don't know if I can watch another movie in which Firth is the villain as I suffer from DDS (Darcy Derangement Syndrome). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy nearly killed me.
I got the same vibes after viewing the coming attractions as conveyed in this review. I'll probably still go see it because even Spielberg's lessor movies are technically well crafted and entertaining (1941, AI, The Post).
I still think Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" was the best alien contact si-fi movie made to date because it dealt with the distance problem. I was also really moved by these words in the script spoken by the alien from Vega voice to astronomer Ellie (Jodie Foster) when she finally made contact:
You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
Thank you for the warning. I hate being patronized by a movie. And I have to say I am a bit sick of seeing Emily Blunt in everything.
Ok I went to see it. Spoilers follow- Blunt is v good. The story is morally interesting ... but the pacing didn't work for me ... it did drag at times..and the aliens could have looked less like the common stereotype. I didn't fully understand what they did to our two leads' brains when briefly abducting them; and i was not sure where that adult alien suddenly came from at the end. Also could have done without the religious theme.
To my mind, the thing about Disclosure Day, as compared to, say, CE3K, is that the timing is off. The awe and wonder are gone. When CE3K came out, people knew a bit about UFO sightings, and some even knew a bit about alien abduction stories (like Betty and Barney Hill). But a lot of people never really thought about it much. There was also no real coherent vision of what "first contact" might actually look like (with all due respect to some of the earlier 50's and 60's movies about it), and CE3K captured it almost perfectly and at precisely the right time in our societal evolution. And the alien technology was convincing, not technologically deficient, like earlier attempts (Kubrik's 2001 excluded, of course).
It just seems like Disclosure Day won't have the same impact. Not to mention how stressed everyone is about the world, and it's kind of like, well, we got much bigger problems than bullshit alien cover-up stories - not to take anything away from the possible value of this film, which I have not seen, but do plan to see at some point.
I was 8 years old when I saw CE3K in the theatre. It blew me away. More than Star Wars. It made me think about UFOs, aliens, space, the universe, etc. in ways that I never did up to that point (granted, 8 year olds don't have a lot of time to have had a lot of worldly experiences). But it did have a real impact on me, and sparked my curiosity in science, and I'm grateful for that.
Also, as an 8 year old, it was totally lost on me how Roy Neary was actually a selfish SOB who left behind his wife and kids (after essentially destroying their lives) seemingly without a thought about it. This was also lost on Spielberg, who has since said he wouldn't have ended it like that if he made it today. I think a lot differently about Roy Neary these days than I did back in 1977.
Anyway, I am interested to see Disclosure Day, probably when it can be streamed, but I expect I won't be that moved by it.
"Also, as an 8 year old, it was totally lost on me how Roy Neary was actually a selfish SOB who left behind his wife and kids (after essentially destroying their lives) seemingly without a thought about it. This was also lost on Spielberg, who has since said he wouldn't have ended it like that if he made it today. I think a lot differently about Roy Neary these days than I did back in 1977."
I am glad he had Roy Neary behave like that; I think it's compelling evidence for just how powerful the compulsion the aliens planted into the minds of their "invited guests" was. They had a lot less free will than they thought they did. And along with keeping kidnapped people away from their families for decades, it hints that while the aliens may not be evil, they're not entirely beneficent, either. Just how DO they view humanity?
I will see it. This reminds me of Empire of the Sun which was a film that was wonderful till somewhere when it seemed there was an incomplete story. That happens with art. An idea is too big to tie it all together.
I saw it today. Movie is okay, not great, not terrible.
I have been thinking that the problem with the movie is that there is too little tension, especially in the early going. The movie is called "Disclosure Day" after all.
There is a lot of good technical work and because I was not engaged as I would have liked, I was able to pay more attention to it. A lot of craftsmanship, but not enough result.
I'll allow you to be wrong, Sonny. Sure, the ending was kind of "shave and a haircut, two bits" but that had to be expected. I didn't feel let down at all.
Just watched it and totally agree with the review. There’s moments where it has an emotional tug but you’re very conscious that it’s not earned- and Williams’ music gets a lot of the credit at those moments. And an actual maguffin, seriously? You have to at least try with sci fi to explain it, you can’t just be ‘here’s an object that does everything righto nothing more to say there’. The actors are good but they’ve little to work with.
I just kept being reminded of Escape to Witch Mountain
Sonny, this review is way too harsh. There are definitely some B movie plot points. What is it with the magical rock things never really gets explained beyond them obviously being alien stuff. But the film is quite explicit about human brutality as the torture of the alien scene shows. The film may end with a call for empathy but it mostly suggests that there is little of it about. Trite is unfair, though maybe there should have been a post credits scene showing all the conspiracy theories that would be about 2 days after disclosure
As a child of the Close Encounters era, you'd think I'd be all over this film, but I have to say the trailers left me totally indifferent. Generally, if you pitched me a movie that had Spielberg, aliens of uncertain intent, excellent actors, a world in turmoil... I *should* be all over that. It's not Spielberg's fault, but I recently slogged my way through the boring-on-steroids series "Invasion," which had humans clicking an alien language and loooong stretches of annoying quasi-mystical mind-melding or something. At least it had explosions. I will likely see "Disclosure Day" eventually, but it is very sad that Sonny's review seems to confirm my instinctive yawning response to the ads.
I will see Disclosure Day because l am a huge fan of Spielberg, believe he is a genius filmmaker/director. I am also a huge fan of Emily Blunt and Colin Firth. Like everything else, some of his movies are better than others. I may be considered a low brow for saying this, but my favorite Spielberg movie is Jurassic Park. I’m 76 now, and when those dinosaurs suddenly appeared running across the big screen so many years ago, l was totally mesmerized. It made me cry. And l had read Michael Crichton’s novel. What an experience! I have watched it several times since, and it is still a thrill.
JURASSIC PARK is still one of my favorites, and it still plays; my kids ask to watch it regularly. I am always happy to oblige!
I don't know if I can watch another movie in which Firth is the villain as I suffer from DDS (Darcy Derangement Syndrome). Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy nearly killed me.
I got the same vibes after viewing the coming attractions as conveyed in this review. I'll probably still go see it because even Spielberg's lessor movies are technically well crafted and entertaining (1941, AI, The Post).
I still think Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" was the best alien contact si-fi movie made to date because it dealt with the distance problem. I was also really moved by these words in the script spoken by the alien from Vega voice to astronomer Ellie (Jodie Foster) when she finally made contact:
You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
Don’t know how but I thought the previews were off and felt the film was going to be lacking.
Sonny:
"[A director] desperate to tell us something but unsure he can trust us to understand what he hopes to express without holding our hands throughout."
That's a perfect description of every Spielberg film ever.
Thank you for the warning. I hate being patronized by a movie. And I have to say I am a bit sick of seeing Emily Blunt in everything.
Ok I went to see it. Spoilers follow- Blunt is v good. The story is morally interesting ... but the pacing didn't work for me ... it did drag at times..and the aliens could have looked less like the common stereotype. I didn't fully understand what they did to our two leads' brains when briefly abducting them; and i was not sure where that adult alien suddenly came from at the end. Also could have done without the religious theme.
To my mind, the thing about Disclosure Day, as compared to, say, CE3K, is that the timing is off. The awe and wonder are gone. When CE3K came out, people knew a bit about UFO sightings, and some even knew a bit about alien abduction stories (like Betty and Barney Hill). But a lot of people never really thought about it much. There was also no real coherent vision of what "first contact" might actually look like (with all due respect to some of the earlier 50's and 60's movies about it), and CE3K captured it almost perfectly and at precisely the right time in our societal evolution. And the alien technology was convincing, not technologically deficient, like earlier attempts (Kubrik's 2001 excluded, of course).
It just seems like Disclosure Day won't have the same impact. Not to mention how stressed everyone is about the world, and it's kind of like, well, we got much bigger problems than bullshit alien cover-up stories - not to take anything away from the possible value of this film, which I have not seen, but do plan to see at some point.
I was 8 years old when I saw CE3K in the theatre. It blew me away. More than Star Wars. It made me think about UFOs, aliens, space, the universe, etc. in ways that I never did up to that point (granted, 8 year olds don't have a lot of time to have had a lot of worldly experiences). But it did have a real impact on me, and sparked my curiosity in science, and I'm grateful for that.
Also, as an 8 year old, it was totally lost on me how Roy Neary was actually a selfish SOB who left behind his wife and kids (after essentially destroying their lives) seemingly without a thought about it. This was also lost on Spielberg, who has since said he wouldn't have ended it like that if he made it today. I think a lot differently about Roy Neary these days than I did back in 1977.
Anyway, I am interested to see Disclosure Day, probably when it can be streamed, but I expect I won't be that moved by it.
"Also, as an 8 year old, it was totally lost on me how Roy Neary was actually a selfish SOB who left behind his wife and kids (after essentially destroying their lives) seemingly without a thought about it. This was also lost on Spielberg, who has since said he wouldn't have ended it like that if he made it today. I think a lot differently about Roy Neary these days than I did back in 1977."
I am glad he had Roy Neary behave like that; I think it's compelling evidence for just how powerful the compulsion the aliens planted into the minds of their "invited guests" was. They had a lot less free will than they thought they did. And along with keeping kidnapped people away from their families for decades, it hints that while the aliens may not be evil, they're not entirely beneficent, either. Just how DO they view humanity?
It’s an interesting take. The aliens in CE3K are actually hard to pin down in terms of their motivations and behavior. Kind of the point, I think.
Still, I feel that what Neary does to his wife and kids is shitty. 😂
I SO want(ed) to believe 😪 . Gonna see it anyway of course, will give Spielberg every possible chance to disappoint me himself