Disclosure Day Review

 

A cybersecurity specialist (played by Josh O’Connor) is on the run from his secret corporation bosses involving danger and secrets in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Meanwhile, a Kansas City meteorologist (played by Emily Blunt) experiences strange abilities and powers after a cardinal looks at her during breakfast.

I would describe Disclosure Day as a mystery thriller; the film opens almost mid-story and grips the audience very quickly in a way that you don’t know what’s going on, but you’re sort of able to piece things together and want to know what is going on here.

I also appreciate how the story will cut between characters at the beginning and how you wonder how they connect and then how they eventually fuse. The different storylines together were well done and pretty interesting.

Emily Blunt is fantastic in the film; she shows how wide her acting range is and gets to do a lot of fun different kinds of acting. I would say this is easily one of her top five best acting performances of her career, but that’s just me.

Josh O’Connor is very good as well; his character is very sympathetic and down-to-earth, a very good ride-along character for the audience to follow. Plus, for someone who has a pretty thick English accent, he does an American accent pretty well.

Eve Harlow plays Jane, O’Connor's character's girlfriend, who gets swept up into the conspiracy, and I liked her character and her journey; she had a lot of fun twists and turns and, in a lot of ways, brings a lot of heart and emotional depth to the film.

Wyatt Russell plays Emily Blunt’s character’s boyfriend, and he is also very down-to-earth but brings a lot of humor through his character's bewilderment at everything going on, and he and Blunt have really good and natural chemistry together.

Coleman Domingo plays another leak/mentor to O’Connor‘s character, and Domingo, as usual, is solid; he delivers some nice speeches about telling the truth and about empathy.

Colin Firth does a good job at playing the head of the secret corporation as he tries to hunt the characters down. I will say his character is a little one-note emotionally, like Firth hits that note well, but even when we learn more about his character in this situation, I feel like we don’t see different sides of this character or at least as much as I wanted; he’s just always kind of aloof and wants to get back what O’Connor‘s character stole.

Elizabeth Marvel has a small supporting role as a noun in the film, and I thought her character brought a fun and interesting perspective to the story's events, and the actress did a very good and memorable part in the role.

They are really fun action set pieces throughout; there are at least two really good car chases that are thrilling, exhilarating, and even funny at certain points, not to mention all the practical driving effects, and CGI integration was pretty well handled and never distracting. Very well done and really shows how talented Spielberg is behind the camera.

I also liked all the comedic scenes of Blunt discovering and using her new powers; those led to some fun moments and interesting interactions with other characters.

John Williams' score works in the film. Well, it’s one of the scores that I couldn’t necessarily hum from memory, but while watching the movie, it does fit and works to the film's advantage.

The CGI throughout again never feels out of place, and there are some cool shots involving old camera footage that I really dug.

I liked how some of the extraterrestrial technology was used in the story; it’s just enough that you understand what’s going on, but they don’t go into a lot of detail to explain exactly what things are and how they work, so there is this nice bit of mystery to everything.

I will say once the third act starts to kick in and characters start to meet up, Spielberg really pushes his own brand of "childlike wonder in amazement” to the characters, and he really pushes it to 11. Personally, I think it comes on a little strong, like certain parts feel like you’re about to watch one of those really sappy Christmas Coca-Cola commercials. It works fine within the context of the story, and it’s definitely one of the elements that I think will be different for each audience member, but for me, it’s like eating too much candy: a little bit can be very good, but a lot can come off as overly sweet.

I do appreciate and like some of the humor that happens towards the climax, but once the climax actually kicks in, I feel like things happen pretty easily for the characters, and I found what happened with the villains very anticlimactic at the end, like this film is almost an hour and a half, a lot of build-up for an ending that felt a little too… Well, I guess that’s it.

Also, let me just say, without spying anything about the ending… Man, there is some really good Wi-Fi towards the end of this movie, like you almost want to be like, "Yeah, yeah, there are aliens and stuff, but how strong is that Internet signal?” lol

I also got to see the movie with my friends, so that was cool

Despite my feelings on the climax and Spielberg’s strong use of whimsy, I do think overall Disclosure Day is a very well-made film in both a technical and emotional sense, with incredibly well-acted performances from the entire cast, entertaining set pieces, and interesting ideas. I give the film between 3 and a half ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 & 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️; this film is definitely… Out of this world. 🌎😂

Masters of the Universe (2026) Review

 

On the distant planet of Eternia, Prince Adam is sent to Earth when his kingdom is taken over by the evil sorcerer Skeletor. Now 15 years later, he goes back to his home world and fights for freedom with old allies and the power of Castle Grayskull to become the cosmic hero… He-Man

When I was 10, there was one season reboot cartoon of He-Man that I quite enjoyed, so I have a slightly potent nostalgia for the franchise, and I got to say the director Travis Knight definitely nailed the tone and visuals of Eternia and especially all the designs for the characters and locations. So if you’re a fan of this franchise, you’ll definitely enjoy all the big and bombastically fun action sequences.

Another compliment I can give the film: the fight choreography was very well staged and shot in a very quick and dynamic style. You can tell whoever was in charge of the swordplay was having a lot of fun coming up with all the different creative moves.

A big surprise for me was how much I enjoyed Jared Leto as Skeletor; he manages to make him intimidating and creepy while also making him this over-the-top, mustache-twirling villain who adds a lot of alliteration to his evil speeches and chews more scenery than an army of termites lol. Not to mention the CGI to give him the skull face; it’s always convincing and very expressive. He definitely gave my favorite performance in the film.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam/He-Man is pretty solid in the role; he definitely looks the part and nails all the sword fighting.

Choreography, not to mention, brings a fair amount of humor and liability to the role; he also has a few scenes where he definitely gets to shine with his dramatic acting.

I will say the character is written a little too naïve, like he gets stuck on earth for 15 years, and he keeps telling people, "I know that sounds crazy, but I’m from this other planet with these people with powers, like a guy with a stretchy neck and a spring trap dude," and then it surprises him when people look at him like he’s crazy, like you think he wouldn’t have learned after the first few people gave him that look.

Idris Elba is super charismatic as Duncan, the King‘s Man at Arms; he’s given a lot of badass John Wick-type fight sequences while also kind of being the heart of the film as the story goes along.

The rest of the supporting cast are also great in their roles: Camila Mendes is very tough and sarcastically funny as Teela; Alison Brie is very funny and almost comedic in her take on a “Lady Macbeth” type character as Skeletor's right-hand woman and fellow sorceress Evil-Lyn.

He doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but I thought James Purefoy brought a lot of complexity and nuance to Adam’s father/the king.

Charlotte Riley, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Jon Xue Zhang, and James Wilkinson all looked like who they were supposed to and balanced the humor and action for the most part pretty well.

I will say this movie does lean a little too much into humor at points, like the movie starts out pretty serious, sets up its stakes well, and then they get to Earth and things definitely get pretty wacky pretty quick, but this is He-Man after all; the franchise is no stranger to cheese lol, but for the most part it's pretty well balanced, and when they get back to Eternia, we get a little bit more serious again. A lot of the action scenes keep the pace moving at a good pace. But then a little bit before the climax, it’s like the filmmaker took a big bowl of jokes and just poured them all into the script. The film has too many jokes, and most of them are just kind of "meh"; it kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the tension that was building, and this movie could’ve been 15 minutes shorter. I think it would’ve made for a tighter film because then things started to feel uneven in spots, not to mention the spatial blocking, and what certain characters should be doing at certain points started to feel off. The action is still solid, but all the jokes are too much. Like, I have never heard so many fisting jokes in my entire life. I don’t think there are any fisting jokes left; there are so many lol.

The CGI throughout is very well textured, especially on the character of the beast man; the way his fur would move around felt very authentic. It also has a lot of bright and distinct colors, not to mention some fun and creative designs for all the different castles and alien crafts, and all the lightning effects when Adam becomes a man definitely add gravitas to Adam becoming powerful.

I thought Adam had an OK arc about learning to believe in him and himself and be confident in his skills; it can get a little overexplained in parts, and the payoff isn’t as strong as I hoped, but it’s still solid and easy to follow.

And a very light spoiler… One of my favorite characters is in it, but just a cameo, still cool to see him

Masters of the Universe may not be the deepest film; I’d say it’s overly goofy in certain areas, but overall it is delightfully fun in a lot of its visuals, performances, action, and treatment of the material. I just wish the tones were more well-balanced and maybe the script tighter, but what I got was entertaining and a solid adaptation of the material. I give the film three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️; it’s a good example of a fun summer movie.

Backrooms Review

 

Clark, a manager of a furniture store, finds a secret magical door to seemingly endless rooms with strange and distorted designs, and things quickly become spooky and surreal.

So Backrooms is making a lot of money at the box office; it’s very successful, and I think that’s because the big selling point of this movie is the visuals of the backrooms themselves. They start out very simple, yellow rooms with furniture around, almost looking like a Salvador Dalí painting, parts with chairs being refused to the ceiling or different shoes melting into the floor, but everything is shot in big, wide, flat angles, and you’re just following people going from room to room. It's very good at putting you in the shoes of the characters and just wondering what you’re going to see next because you’ll be in one room and then go to a holiday room and then a room that looks like a spa, and then you’ll go, and then you’re in a classroom. It's like when you’re in a dream and things will just change or feel off automatically, but you don’t realize it because you’re in a dream. It's like a weird David Lynch acid dream version of that, which we’ve all had crazy dreams before, so it’s something we can all relate to.

Another strong point of the movie are the two leads, as previous stated there’s Clark (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) who’s going through a bit of a rough patch in his marriage and work life, and you do feel sympathy for him and his situation, but the mark goes on the more you realize this guy definitely has some issues he needs to work through, he makes for a complex and interesting protagonist, and Ejiofor is one of those actors who always brings a lot of emotion and gravitas to his roles.

The other protagonist is Clark’s therapist, Mary (played by Renate Reinsve), who is also going through her own emotional journey, and her character is a little more straightforward, but I like the actress and the vibe/acting choices she brought to the role; they just post well with what Chiwetel was doing, but also bring a breath of fresh air to the story and tone. Plus, I like her emotional arc and the payoff for it; it was simple but effective, the best kind of payoff lol.

The supporting cast was all very good; Mark Dupless has a small but intriguing role, and he’s very good at playing very quiet, minimal characters.

It won’t be a horror movie without some young teens who may or may not be killed, and Finn Bennett & Lukita Maxwell both bring a chilled but grounded perspective to the situation and work well off Clark; they also bring a nice comic element, which, given how sterile and unnerving things get, definitely brings a nice levity.

Krista Kosonen probably has the smallest amount of screen time, but with just a look, she really sells her performance and has a very memorable part.

I can’t say much about Robert Bobroczkyi's role in the film, but I’ll say two things… 1. God damn lol, and 2. He was very effective.

I’d be interested to know how the crew created the back rooms. Did they rent out a building and just create all these different levels with unique designs, or was there some CGI fiddling? Because honestly, you can’t really tell, and you can tell whoever was in charge of designing the back rooms was having a lot of fun with the distorted, almost avant-garde design of everything, as described in the film “It's like a copy of a copy of a copy."

You know if you had told me what the “big bad” of the film was on paper. It may not seem like much, but in the final film, it takes what could be a silly idea and makes it genuinely creepy and intimidating.

The film takes place in 1990, and so they use a lot of the big analog tape cameras for some shots, and I thought that added a lot of atmosphere and a cool look to everything, not to mention really making you feel like you’re in the perspective of the characters. Now there is a few moments where I’m like “dude why are you filming this, freaking run?”, but that’s something that happens in a lot of found footage type horror films and it’s not too bad, in fact there’s one jump scare that doesn’t even have any big blasting music and it’s for the most part silent I even got me, so good for you Backrooms

The soundtrack was very minimal but effective, and I think that is mostly lit with fluorescent lights and is still unnerving.

I could see this film getting some type of sequel where we see more Backrooms with maybe different characters, but it could also work as a standalone film, but give the box office, so I’m predicting we will probably see Backrooms 2 at some point in the near future.

The director of this film is Kane Parson, who worked on the original Backrooms viral videos when they were first released, so he definitely gets the tone right, but he’s actually 20 years old, which is kind of crazy considering how effective and talented he is at only 20… Like, how dare he? Can you just be lazy like we all were at 20? Why do you have to make us look bad? lol

I will say the third act does go in a slightly different direction, like I feel like where it ended up could’ve been set up a little better and it does feel a little separate from the rest of the film, but it is helped with some good performances and character moments, not to mention a few creepy visuals, but like I said, it could’ve been working into the store a little better

Also, this really has nothing to do with the movie, but it was kind of funny to see how many name producers worked on this film; like, the producer credits were pretty long, and it seemed like the only person they were missing was Steven Spielberg lol.

Overall, the film may have a simple premise of people wandering through creepy rooms, but the filmmaking, acting, style, tone, and visuals really elevate this into something unique and special. I give Backrooms a low four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I mean, something that makes low-end furniture stores seem scary is doing something right, lol.

Obsession Review

 

Music store clerk Bear (played by Michael Johnston) has a crush on his coworker Nikki (played by Inde Navarrette) and makes a seemingly harmless wish then Nikki was in love with him and it seemingly works… Too well

The best thing about this movie is Inde Navarrette's performance; how she’s able to immediately switch between lovesick kitten and arranged mountain lion is very impressive as she brings a lot of emotion to each scene.

On the flipside, Michael Johnston brings a lot of subtle acting and makes a great audience avatar for the film while also creating a lot of interesting discussions about how culpable and villainous his character may be. Personally, I feel like he is a little naïve and misguided but sympathetic throughout.

Also, I don’t know how many other people are going to get this, but Michael Johnston looks a lot like YouTuber Julian Smith, who would make a lot of these dark comedic, short films that remind me a lot of this movie, so it kind of feels like you’re watching a movie-length Julian Smith sketch, which kind of worked lol.

The film has a surprising amount of silly yet dark sense of humor, which is very surprising and disarming when it comes up and is effectively funny and is a good way to cut up the tension throughout the movie while still being within that dark tone.

The filmmaking is very intentionally bare bones, with a lot of long wide shots in creepily lit rooms and a dark color grading that adds a lot of quiet mystery and uncomfortable tension to the scenes.

The movie doesn’t go too far into the supernatural aspects and explanations, I wish there had been a tiny bit more, at least in relation to a certain plot point but for the most part, the way it was presented in the film is very ordinary felt very fresh and a nice subversion of these kinds of movies

Most of the film’s who comes from characters, acting strange, and rising tensions, but there are a few bloody parts that are effective, but not too brutal, except one scene in a car, you’ll know it when you see it and while you can kind of notice the budget in that scene it’s still very effective and comes out of nowhere at first

Megan Lawless as Bear’s friend Sarah is an underrated part of the film, her character is very likable down to earth and add a fresh breath to the tone when things really start getting cuckoo for Cocoa puffs lol

A very small spoiler… for some reason Andy Richter (yes that Andy Richter lol), appears in the film as the music store manager, he’s not in the movie a whole lot and I don’t even know if they show him in any close-ups, but it was a fun surprise to see in the film

Cooper Tomlinson as Bear & Nikki’s friend, Ian, brings a lot of humor and charm to the role, and he probably got the biggest laugh out of the audience at one of his scenes… You’ll know it when you see it.

The third act does feel a smidge rushed at points, like a certain character’s story does feel a bit rushed to a conclusion and things escalate pretty quickly, but never too unsatisfying an amount for the overall story.

The soundtrack was very effective; it being creepy and the minimal style really worked with the film's tone.

The cinematography is very moody and has a grimy feel that really matches some of the wild stuff that happens.

I liked the ending and where the characters went; it’s one of those movies I could have had like six different endings for that you could see working, but the one they chose I thought was a pretty good one. It even had some dark comedic elements to this.

Inde Navarrette also make some pretty memorable creepy faces that I’m sure we’re gonna see him memes for a while lol

Like I said, there isn’t a whole lot of gore, and it’s not too explicit, but there are a couple moments where things definitely get “squishy” lol.

Curry Baker’s directing as I’ve said is pretty impressive, it’s minimal, but you can tell intentional and he knows how to get great performances out of his actors while feeling natural and can really build tension to a satisfying pay off… apparently he supposed to be directing a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, which after watching this movie doesn’t really tell me how that movie will do or feel, but I do recognize this kids got talent so I’m at least interested to see where he goes with it… A future review to come soon lol.

I also got to see the movie with my buddies, and we all enjoyed it so that’s always awesome

Obsession is a strong somber debut for Curry Baker; it takes a familiar story and infuses it with a lot of stellar performances, interesting character beats, a good sense of humor, and memorable unsettling images that really make this film something special and enjoyable… I give it a low four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I’m not… obsessed with the film, but it's still pretty cool. 😅😂👍