Despite the current challenges of the American economy, tickets sales are rising this summer. Two blockbusters are currently on offer in our local movie house, each connected to iconic, long-standing Hollywood brands.
“Disclosure Day”
People keep asking science-fiction thriller “Disclosure Day” director Steven Spielberg in interviews if he believes in aliens. He is, after all, the man who brought us “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
So, I get it. But I don’t need it. The answer to this question is much less important to me than understanding why Spielberg still believes so sincerely in the power of big screen cinema. He refuses to work with streaming services. He believes “the magic happens when strangers gather in a dark room to share an emotional experience,” according to an interview with ITV News.
“Disclosure Day” was clearly designed for this kind of communal, large-format application. Spielberg is back in his beloved “we are not alone in the universe” mode here, but the story has much more to do with the conflicting human reactions to that proposition. Emily Blunt and Josh O’Conner are quite compelling as the two unrelated leads, and their inexorable sprint toward each other is a thrill. Less exciting, perhaps, are Colin Firth and the shadowy government field agents in his command. The agents are the equivalent of Star Wars Stormtroopers, in that they are easily outwitted and can’t hit the broad side of a barn. Coleman Domingo is his usual excellent self as the voice in the ear of our heroes, and the plot succeeds overall, if you give its inconsistencies and conveniences some generous grace. The good news is that the sum of these unequal parts is a really good time. The action is gripping. And the ending, though vague, is satisfying. “Disclosure Day” is a movie made for movie lovers by a movie lover. See it in a theater, please.
“Toy Story 5”
It’s been 31 years since the first infinity and beyond. While that sinks in, I’ll just remind you that since then, we’ve gotten a handful of irregularly-spaced sequels and a Buzz Lightyear spin-off. Once it became clear with 2019’s “Toy Story 4” that Pixar had no intention of limiting this flagship franchise to a trilogy, it was only a matter of time before “Toy Story 5” came to life.
Pretty much right from the start of this new chapter, it feels like you are in for an hour and 45 minutes of extremely familiar material. There are touches of freshness here and there, especially in the movie’s central theme of digital screens and their numbing effect on childhood development. But “Toy Story 5” is an assembly line product, straight from the factory floor. Thank goodness Pixar is such an outstanding and trustworthy factory. It’s nice to be able to count on the quality of animation, humor and voice work. None of the big animation studios can touch Pixar in those categories and, as their technology improves (ironic, given this plot), the action set pieces they produce get more eye-popping every year. “Toy Story 5” benefits from all of this, and the choice to put Jessie (voiced like a dream by Joan Cusack) front and center is welcome and fun. Woody and Buzz are with her, of course, but very much in supporting roles.
Thankfully, toys don’t age. They don’t change all that much, either.
