DISCLOSURE DAY
(12A) 145mins
★★☆☆☆
Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor tackle Extra Terrestrials Credit: Alamy
THIS offering from the mighty Steven Spielberg feels a far cry from such blockbusters as Jurassic Park and Jaws.
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Punctured with plot holes, overcomplicated narratives, clichés and one-dimensional characters, Disclosure Day doesn’t feel like it has the magic touch of the director, who co-wrote the film with David Koepp.
We meet Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a whistleblower on the run after working for underground government contractor Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth).
During his time at the agency, Dr Daniel sees evidence of alien life being covered up, and he feels everyone on Earth deserves to know we are not alone. But how to get it out there without being silenced first?
Luckily, chaotic Kansas weather girl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) has the platform — and a link to the aliens herself.
DULCIE PEARCE
There’s plenty in silly, fun Masters Of The Universe to entertain the family
DULCIE PEARCE
Moss & Freud never quite shows either character as forces of nature they were
After a strange meeting with a hypnotic bird over breakfast — during which her annoying boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) chats incessantly — she is able to read minds and talks in alien mouth clicks live on air.
Dr Kellner sees the footage and recognises the language. He and girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), then run, hide, and go on a car chase in a bid to evade capture and try to inform the world of what’s going on.
This is helped by another former agent, Hugo (Colman Domingo), and hindered by Noah, the baddie with a broken heart.
There’s lots of clutching UFO stones that have various super-powers, depending on whose hands they are in, and oh so much chasing.
Chase after chase, many of which go on for so long it’s hard to recall who is running from whom and why and where they are running to.
Blunt tries her best to make her frantic weather forecaster likeable, but she has clearly been instructed to spend much of the film giving pouty stares into the eyes of various cast members or off into the horizon.
There’s also footage of cliché-looking aliens which, bizarrely, make the humans who watch them feel extreme empathy and tear up for the species. There’s also some religious questions thrown in by ex-nun Jane.
This frustrating film gets an extra star for the superb score by John Williams — it’s the 30th time he and Spielberg have joined forces.
But the messy and often cheesy story sadly has very little to disclose.
STRICTLY BALLROOM
(PG) 94mins
★★★★★
Strictly Ballroom is now out for a new generation to enjoyCredit: Not Known
BEFORE Baz Luhrmann became famous for films Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, the director made his first – and I think, best – feature film.
Now re-released in cinemas in 4K, 1992’s Strictly Ballroom is out for a new generation to enjoy.
The hilarious, often heart-wrenching romantic comedy is the story of Aussie dancer Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), the son of two retired ballroom dancers who run a teaching studio.
His pushy, devoted mum, Shirley (Pat Thomson), is desperate to find him a new partner and holds auditions. But Scott soon goes rogue and teams up with amateur geeky dancer Fran (Tara Morice) behind his mum’s back.
Similar to Dirty Dancing, the pair have to practise in secret, which leads to a lot of lingering looks and a montage set to Time After Time.
The dance partners then break all the rules in a competition, judged by a Trump-like Barry Fife (Bill Hunter), and there’s a stunning, slo-mo knee slide onto the dance floor that brings goosebumps.
This original, quirky film is still strictly brilliant.
THE FALL OF SIR DOUGLAS WEATHERFORD
(15) 95mins
★★★☆☆
The always-excellent Peter Mullen plays Kenneth Credit: Alamy
THIS offbeat drama about a weary, good-natured local historian in the Scottish highlands is strangely comforting.
The always-excellent Peter Mullen plays Kenneth, recently widowed and seemingly surviving on his passion for obscure ancestor, Sir Douglas Weatherford.
He works in the museum devoted to the 18th-century amateur surgeon and landowner, more often than not landing the employee of the month prize.
Kenneth often dresses as his hero and gives talks to tourists, but his world is disrupted when a Game Of Thrones-style series starts filming nearby and the museum swaps out its dusty Weatherford exhibits to appeal to Comic-Con visitors.
Slowly, Kenneth’s good nature begins to change, and his relationship with Weatherford is questioned.
Perhaps too gentle and meandering at times, first-time director Sean Robert Dunn does a decent job with this film, exploring how a man’s relationship with the past can leave him stuck there.
And Mullen is, as always, a powerhouse on the big screen.
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