KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. A mid-week KWIF as this weekend brings us Supergirl and maybe other distractions.
This Week:
Disclosure Day (2026, d. Steven Spielberg - in theatre)
Toy Story 5 (2026, d. Andrew Stanton - in theatre)
Hoppers (2026, d. Daniel Chong - Disney+)
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I've always considered Steven Spielberg an "aliens" guy (as I think most people do?), even though it'd been a minute since Spielberg last did aliens.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was 2008 and only featured the aliens reveal in the end. He remade
War of the Worlds in 2005 and it was over 20 years before that when he did
E.T. The Extra-terrestrial. Prior to that it was
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In a career with 35 movies 1/7th of his output was aliens related. That track record alone wouldn't make him an "aliens" guy, but it's still hard not to think of him that way because, in his presentation of aliens on film, particularly in
Close Encounters, E.T. and now
Disclosure Day, they seem not the works of a fantasist, but of a believer.
Disclosure Day isn't a preachy movie, and yet it's really trying to sell the audience on the idea that aliens exist and that we should be okay with it (I mean, I get where Spielberg's coming from, as we are a species that is notoriously xenophobic, that destroys what it doesn't understand, and generally rebuffs the unfamiliar in favour of the samey same). It's a chase movie that posits that a shadowy organization, Wardex, in collusion with the U.S. Department of Defense, has been covering up alien encounters, commoditizing alien technology, communicating with alien beings, and torturing alien prisoners. At a certain point the "need to know" on all this became tighter and tighter to the point that even the POTUS was eventually denied access (given who sits there now, probably for the best).
As the film starts, Wardex employees have turned up missing, as have Wardex assets retrieved from alien encounters. They're on the hunt for Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor, The Crown), a mathematics and programming prodigy who has escaped with thumb drives of their entire video archives as well as a particular piece of space magic technology. Daniel is on the run with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson, The Knick), who he learns, in the process of hiding out, used to be a nun. As he discloses to her why he is on the run, that "disclosure day" is coming and all this material will be made public, Jane's faith (and lack of faith in humanity) has her bristling against this course of action.
Meanwhile local Kansas City news station weather person, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, The English) has aspirations for becoming a news anchor. She has an encounter with a cardinal (the bird, not the Catholic) immediately after which she begins having weird episodes of speaking foreign dialects, and empathically reading peoples minds and finding the perfect path to delivering them comfort, sometimes with words and other times with telepathic images. After trying to give a weather report, only to wind up speaking in an alien language of clicks, she passes out. An MRI shows no anomalies, but the Wardex goons are waiting for her outside her hospital room. With the concerned help of her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) they get out. Margaret knows something is happening to her, but she also knows it's not a bad thing.
She gets a phone call from ex-Wardex employee Hugo Wakefield (Coleman Domingo, The Four Seasons), the man orchestrating the whole "disclosure day" event, and he advises her to find Daniel, using her instincts to guide her.
Daniel gets captured, Jane's on the run, Margaret ditches Jackson, Margaret rescues Daniel and they keep running afoul of the Wardex goons, as their leader, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth, The Staircase) uses alien technology to invade peoples minds and take over their bodies.
This is all happening as U.S.-Russian tensions escalate and the threat of nuclear war and/or World War III looms large. Jane and Scanlon both worry that any disclosure of the existence of extraterrestrial beings will plunge an already volatile world even further asunder.
This is very much Spielberg (with frequent collaborator, screenwriter David Koepp, and, oh yes, John Williams' latest [maybe last] film score) in Spielberg mode. When you think of a Spielbergian adventure, this slots right into that. Spielberg has long been an incredible populist filmmaker, he wants his films to be (for the most part) enjoyable to the broadest demographics. But that Spielbergian populism, at its peakiest peak, was always very American-centric. For as avid an enthusiast of World War II and aliens as he is, he seems incapable of really expanding his mindset out of the ol' U.S. of A.
So despite having three Brits as the leads of this film, only Firth plays in his natural accent (because the British accent can still accentuate the "villain" motif). Blunt is working in an American dialect I can't quite place, but there's a hint of a twang, while O'Connor's American accent comes off as somewhat flat.
In dealing with its backdrop of international tensions, we don't get a sense that there's any extension of Wardex outside of America. There's no conceit that they have satellites all over the globe where other alien encounters *must* have happened. Not even a mention. It's like the John Smith idea that America is special and that a resurrected Jesus went there to deliver a whole second set of commandments, just for Americans, because they're special. This is a movie that doesn't tout American Exceptionalism, but it's most definitely the product of creators educated in that sort of groupthink.
Disclosure Day, in its sensibilities feels very of the 1980s, and I can't help but feel had it been a period piece (Spielberg loves a period piece) set in the '80's that it might have played better for me. I get the sense that Spielberg wanted to explore his anxiety around our lack of empathy, our fractioning, our tribalism, and all the unease in the world, and that, in his mind there's one unifying answer, that we're not alone and we should be thinking of something more than ourselves. It's not hard to extract that message, but it all teeters on the edge of cloying.
The man is a masterful, thoughtful storyteller, but he has a mode he finds himself in regularly, and, while it's been a while, this is that mode. One where his sense of hope and optimism means that conflict is pretty neutered and there's a sever disconnect with reality (how many times should Margaret have been shot dead and wasn't? How terribly sloppy is Wardex as an organization?).
This is a movie that does not lack for interest, intrigue or excitement, nor does it lack for some really good performances, and intriguing ideas, but for the most part Disclosure Day didn't hold together for me. It did feel like the "aliens guy" was trying too hard to convince me of something rather than let me get there on my own.
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No, I don't know what "HDR"
or "Barco" are... |
As an adult person really interested in the collecting of toys (I'm an APRICOT, a term I just made up and is definitely not going to get adopted voluntarily by the collecting community) the idea has been percolating for some time about the potential for a
Toy Story feature that takes place in the world of adult collectibles. I love going to toy shows and the idea of putting Woody and pals in the feeding frenzy of toy conventions, with nerdy adults haggling over pricing and condition of figures, or squatting and rifling through a dig bin, well it gives me tingles and has me smiling. But the basics of the idea of Woody confronting "collectibles" was already covered in
Toy Story 2, and I'm not sure such an idea offers much more thematically than that (except to say we don't have to grow up and stop playing with toys, and I don't know that it would cover much different ground than
The Lego Movie did). Watching
Toy Story 5 served to remind me that it is a series about the importance of play for children, and that the toys in these movies have a singular desire to make children happy. Not the inner children of adults but, like, legit kids.
The prior Toy Story movies have centered around primarily Woody or Buzz, with characters like Jesse or Lotso Huggins driving home a particular emotional thread, but Toy Story 5 puts Jesse (Joan Cusack) front and center, pushing Buzz and Woody to the periphery, as Jesse, for as tough a cowgirl as she is, still has a particular traumatic trigger around being abandoned. She has been basking in the glow of being Bonnie's #1 toy for a couple years now, but Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) needs more than just toys as friends, and as much as Jesse wants to help Bonnie connect with other kids, they're just not interested in much other than screens.
Enter Lilypad (Greta Lee), a web-enabled tablet device for kids that immediately takes the dominant spot in Bonnie's room and pushes all other concerns aside. Lily takes it upon herself to connect Bonnie to other kids from dance class, and for a moment, it seems like Lily is doing what Jesse couldn't. But in order to fit in Bonnie has to be her inauthentic self, and it's kind of a disaster for her. A late night chat with Woody (Tom Hanks) via walky-talky with a shaky connection brings Woody back to Bonnie's room, only to find when Lily returns Jesse and Bullseye have gone missing, and a lovelorn Buzz (Tim Allen) desperate to find her.
The human kids in the Toy Story franchise have largely been like deities, gods worshipped by these toys, and thus a bit more abstract. We are typically invested in the world of the toys, less so the world the kids inhabit. But this film places Bonnie as just as central a figure as Jesse, yes inhabiting two different worlds, but symbiotically. One needs the other whether they know it or not. We get so invested in Bonnie's well being that it's soul crushing when she's rejected by others. Yes, the toys love her more than existence itself, but Bonnie doesn't know this, they're not the real world to her, just a part of her very vivid imagination.
Picking up the threads of Jesse's trauma from Toy Story 2, she has her own anxiety spirals that as often elicit rage as desperation. She lashes out at Lily, at technology in general, and it's up to a trio of long dormant devices she finds in another home (led by Smarty Pants, a toilet training device voiced by Conan O'Brien) to teach her that technology has its place in a child's development as well, and can just be as important to them as old fashioned role-playing toys.
The undercurrent of the film is casting a critical - but not damning - eye at technology. It's a film that acknowledges the draw of technology and how it can entertain and how it can help a child develop in certain ways, but it is also keen to point out its limitations and even its drawbacks. Writer-director Andrew Stanton sharply observes that while technology may satisfy most kids attention, it won't satisfy all, and some kids (and adults) will prefer playtime to pixels, and wouldn't it be great if technology could connect them.
There is a secondary thread which finds a crate of next gen Buzz Lightyear toys washed ashore on a deserted island, and it slowly starts to arc its way in front of the path of the main story. Rather than being a distraction it's entertaining, exciting and curious, both in the actions on screen and the question of how it could possibly fit in the overall narrative of the story, which it does so pretty nicely.
Did we need another Toy Story movie? While it's doubtful anything will ever hit the resonant high and tumultuous events of Toy Story 3, each entry in the series has validated its existence with a narrative purpose that expands on the themes of the series, builds up its characters even more, and has a remarkable amount of fun in doing so. Five films in 30 years is hardly a flooded market. I'm not sure I want the series to continue if it outlives its cast, but if everyone's game in 2031, I'll be just as happy to see where it goes next.
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In prep for
Toy Story 5, I decided to dive into
Hoppers, the previous entry in Pixar's dynasty of (mostly) quality product.... I mean, it has been a while since Pixar felt like "Pixar!" where every release was an event worth taking note and going to the theatre, even if you didn't have kids and time to kill. The breaking point seemed to be in 2015, when
The Good Dinosaur not only failed to delight critics, but kids as well. It was Pixar's first real disappointment and the sequel-heavy future looked a bit bleak from there. Not that people weren't excited for
Finding Dory or a new
Incredibles or
Toy Story 4 but with so little new in the tank it felt like Pixar wasn't the place of innovation it once was (I mean,
Into the Spider-Verse came out the same year as
Incredibles 2 and, as good Brad Bird's sequel was, the
Spider-Man movie made it look somewhat antequated.)
While Soul, Luca and Turning Red are all quite good films that sparkle with some of the latent Pixar magic, films like Onward, Lightyear, Elemental and Elio have all felt underbaked or formulae-gone-wrong, just gas-less films that failed to excite critics or audiences (to the point that these four, plus the Cars sequels, are the only Pixar films I haven't seen).
Hoppers' wasn't a return to form for Pixar, but it wasn't a critical or commercial failure either. In one week Toy Story 5 has already outperformed Hoppers' entire theatrical run. But then, Toy Story 5 has history, name recognition, and the might of Disney behind it. Hoppers got a trailer that didn't really tell the audience what it was about and a title which is kind of perplexing. It looked more like a Disney knock-off movie than the next great Pixar film.
It is definitely better than a Disney knock-off, but it has some hills to climb and it doesn't fully accomplish reaching the apex.
The title, Hoppers when paired with its protagonist images on the poster and in the trailer, is a head scratcher. Beavers aren't exactly known for their hopping ability.
"Hopping" in the movie, however, is the term for putting one's consciousness into the body of a robot animal... something the trailer sort of forgets to talk about. In the film, Mabel Tanaka is a ADHD-coded child with too much energy to burn, and a lot of festering rage. Her grandmother takes her to the glade and teaches her the tranquility of being at one with nature, of listening to its rhythms and just enjoying the peace of the Earth. A dozen years later, grandma has passed and Beaverton's Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) wants to build a beltway through the glade to make circumnavigating the city a possibility. Mabel (Piper Curda) will do anything to stop him but feels helpless, unable to get anyone else to care about nature.
She discovers her college professor Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy) has invented robot animals that can traverse nature undetected and undisturbed, not only that but the operator is technically inside the robot, acting as the animal. Mabel hijacks the beaver robot and enters the wilderness where she discovers where all the animals that abandoned the glade are now in a concentrated space that's incapable of keeping them all. She tries to rally to animals to fight back for their land, and once again finds apathy...at first. And then...violence.
The thrust of the story is that Mabel is connected to nature and loves it wholeheartedly, and she will do anything to protect it. But her energy is off-putting and tends to deter people from her cause rather than to embrace it or see what she sees. It's a film about how utterly defeating it can be to care, how soul-crushing it seems when it feels like you're the only one who cares about a problem, and how sometimes one's efforts can not only fail, but backfire.
The problem is, as a story it doesn't offer good alternatives. It's a film that acknowledges that we need fighters in the world, and we perhaps need to have more empathy for the fighters than we do, but it doesn't tell the fighters, or the wanna-be fighters how to fight. In fact, it kind of low key shames them, puts them down, and pushes the fighters towards working with the systems that don't really work rather than trying to remake the systems so they do. The film digs a hole for itself that it's not really equipped to get out of once it jumps in.
The standard Pixar formulae finds its stories taking place in a world that we're unfamiliar with, one which posits that it's existed the whole time only we're just being exposed to it now (the ocean life in Finding Nemo/Dory, the world of toys in Toy Story, the world of bugs in A Bugs Life, the monster dimension in Monsters Inc., the world of emotions in Inside Out etc). In presenting such a world, everything to the last detail needs to be thought through and considered. If a joke is made, the logic of the joke still needs to fit this world or world-within-a-world. In Hoppers it's the animal kingdom, or at least a regional representation. And it's kind of where Hoppers falls short in its Pixarness. My buy-in into this world fell apart almost immediately as Mabel witnesses the mammal King George (Bobby Moynihan) leading the wilds in a rousing routine of jazzercise.
There's a clear divide that there's civilization in a city, and the place where wild animals live outside of it. But where the human dwellers may feel divorced from the bushes outside its streets, the animal kingdom considers humanity to be a part of it. There are royalty in these realms - mammal, lizards, amphibians, fish, birds and insects each have a king or queen (and yet no human king, until beaver-Mabel presents Mayor Jerry as "king" to the humans). There's just an internal lack of consistency to how this whole civilization works and while it's not fatal to the film, it does raise too many questions whilst watching to just fully relax into the story.
Similarly, I could buy into the idea of the hoppers, and even the idea that once your consciousness is placed in the animal robot you can understand other animals (but not humans) but then to have earpieces and communication with humans that cross the divide is a step too far. It's basically an invention that lets humans and animals communicate, which is a much bigger deal than the hoppers technology, quite frankly.
Toy Story 5 has a couple of animals in it and their renderings feel lightyears (pun intended) beyond the animals we see in Hoppers. The animation of Hoppers is fine but doesn't escape the conventional soft-edged trappings that CGI animated movies has largely been stuck in for over 20 years (but thanks to Spider-Verse and K-Pop Demon Hunters we seem to be finding a pathway out of) so in a way, despite being generally entertaining and with a welcome ecological message, it has a generic feel.
[Toasty's take - we agree, I think]
