The Disclosure Day, Disclosing the Anomalies
I watched the disclosure day, and for the first time in a long time I took notes on this movie. Contrary to popular opinion, I think this movie was written and directed in a really nice way. There were few corny moments and few critical views which I will get into later half of this review. There will be spoilers to the movie, if you were thinking of watching the movie I would suggest you to come back here after the movie.
The premise of the movie revolves around disclosing the existence of alien life, and all the abhorrent things that were done to them in the name of science and progress. We follow a guy at the start running from a group after stealing something from them. Simultaneously we are shown the life of a weather reporter who wants to get her own prime time slot. The director deliberately, made the start of the story confusing by introducing the guy who has been running, the group chasing him and the group he is assisting. Since I had a vague idea of the film, I jumped into the conclusion that the group was the alien (especially, after we were told the lead villain once used the alien artifact) and the person trying to disclose is trying to reveal the aliens big plot.
As the story shifts to the weather reporter, as a viewer you feel relieved because there is now someone you can relate to, who is not already tangled in the plot at the start. This soon changes as the alien powers inside the yet to be declared protagonist awakens; now as a viewer you cannot but feel intrigued in this plot. The only moment of "huh, I can follow the story now" breaks leaving you confused, this is when the husband character plays a pivotal role in guiding the viewer and instructing them how to feel; confused. This character throughout the movie guides you on how to feel from here on out.
Even though, the reporter had her power awakened you would still assume the guy running away to be the protagonist. Speaking of running away, one of the biggest concern I had about this movie were the science group, the movie trying to be extremely alien, absolutely missed the mark of science, or any sense of how the world would function (more on this later). I understand having great power, would give you enough control over the government but the amount of science fiction technology shown in this movie brings you out of the immersion and makes you feel like this is of-course a fantasy. In my opinion the premise of the movie is extremely realistic, especially in the year of 2026 with AI being worked on against populous opinion. Sometimes science and progress are enough motivators for a sector to gain power, without showing fancy headquarters and so many screens that you are not sure but laugh at.
Adding to the element of science fiction, I am not sure of the logistics and the funds these groups have access to. No matter how advanced the technology is, I don't believe a department will be provided this much money to function unless the alien technology hits the global market, or this country is in control of the whole world, which in the setting of this movie it is not. This movie's science is only used as a comedic relief in between intense scenes, which I strongly condemn. The premise of the movie could do so much more to bring out the true horrors of science when combined with a capitalistic agenda, but never tries to capitalize on this.
Coming back to the current protagonist who is running with his girlfriend, he finally ends up disclosing the truth, during which we are also disclosed about the horrible experiments, and torture we have put these aliens through. This is the point of movie we are slowly starting to be clear on the plot, it definitely says that the white guy and his team are covering up for alien torture, and the protagonist along with the black guy are trying to bring the information out to the public. You still are not sure whose side you want to be on yet in the movie. One of my gripe here is that, among all the reasons you could have decided to defend the non disclosure, the director chose religion! Don't mistake me, faith is one such important thing that gives people meaning, but solely having that as your movies plot is just absurd, in such a global phenomenon. The girlfriend was made to choose between a non human being or her god, and of course she chose god!
Now as the movie progressed further, you could slowly see that the guy who was running away was not as important as the weather reporter (the actual protagonist). I was pleasantly surprised as the movie constantly made me piece the plot together, the reporter slowly realizes her ability to perceive deep into someone's mind and make them see what they want to see. This brings a huge confusion to the plot, till the end I was not clear whether this alien self of the reporter was trying to slowly takeover the human reporter after being trapped for so long, or is the human reporter realizing that she has superhuman abilities. This distinction makes quite the difference how you perceive the ending (more on this later).
I also, appreciate the directors ability to drastically switch perspectives and story lines, and his excellence in making the viewer get comfortable with the ongoing plot before increasing the tension with ease. I just wish this was not done at the cost of accurate science. Moving back to the plot, there were a lot of corny moments in the movie such as the scene on the train, I understand the director wanted to exhibit the hive mind-ness of the two protagonists, but it was way to exaggerated with immense strength too. Finally you get to unravel everything about this movie, it was not about these two protagonists being alien, it is the answer to the question "who is this black guy?". Through the video played and the flash back you get to realize they are scientists working on the alien research, but how they got that much money to run their operation is yet an enigma to me.
The final disclosure scene made me laugh quite a bit, especially toward the end it felt like the director was trying to push, "capitalism saved the day" when you see these tv company people rapidly selling the information, and publicizing the disclosure, I would have personally liked to know a bit more about their operation. The final scene made me confused because of what I observed earlier. To me I did not feel like the reporter was a human realizing she has human powers, it felt more like she was the alien realizing she has been acting human. So according to this logic, the disclosure is not about the aliens, the protagonist was the disclosure, that she was the alien.
Final thoughts, this movie is a really strong contender for a well directed movie but my gripe comes out to the ignorance of the director in my form of art "the science". I would have loved this movie if it took itself as serious of the reason for exploitation as it did for the disclosure itself.
with love, ~tux