Disclosure Day says more about humanity than aliens

FORT MADISON - Disclosure Day played downtown at the Fort Madison FOX Theatre last night. It was a cinematic return to alien encounters by the classic Steven Spielberg. The director has won over audiences again with an almost mathematical combination of intricate action sequences and a collectively daunting and emotional resonant core to the story that takes you back to his previous works, such as E.T.
Disclosure Day starts off with cybergenius whistleblower Daniel Kellner and his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship, getting chased down by government affiliated agency Wardex, which seeks to protect secrets of alien encounters and unethical experiments. At the same time, weather news anchor Margaret Fairchild gains sudden psychic powers and a newfound ability to speak alien tongue on live TV, which Wardex identifies and targets her for.
Noah Scanlon, the antagonist and chief executive at Wardex is the enforcer of vaulting their alien encounters who believes humanity would shatter at the shock of the unknown and the dark secrets of the government. Noah uses advanced machinery and an alien artifact to hack into Jane’s mind to perform psychological warfare and gain information of her and Daniel’s whereabouts. The movie grapples with the fear of the effect of disclosing such a big discovery and dark secrets to the world, but also what we have the right to know, and whether it threatens to destroy or reshape everything we know and believe in, specifically religion.
The plot puts you on the edge of your seat with its unexpected, high intensity stunts, chasing, and psychic warfare until the end. The cinematography had the Spielberg mark, specifically in the field where Daniel stands and an alien symbol forms in the grass around him, or during an emotional scene of a character where the shot pulls in on them, a stark light beating on their face.
The actors all performed very well, not veering away from the intensity of the plot’s imagination. Emily Blunt, who plays Margaret, does a great job as a character who is barely holding it together while speaking in fluent Korean or Russian, then doing her psychic truths on people to get herself out of situations. Josh O’Connor, who plays Daniel, has a great stamina for these types of leading roles, carrying a strong emotional performance the whole way through. Colin Firth, who plays Noah, has an unexpected ability to channel a dark look in his eye that makes you believe the lengths his character would go to to protect Wardex’s secrets.