The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Disclosure Day

12/06/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

In 1974, I went to the cinema to watch Sugarland Express, the debut movie from new kid on the block, Steven Spielberg. In the review I subsequently wrote, I probably said something to the effect that here was a young man with a bright future ahead of him. I could have had no inkling back then that, in just one year’s time, a film called Jaws would be a complete game-changer and that it would herald the arrival of a cinematic behemoth. Spielberg is now in his eightieth year and, over the decades, has accrued one of the most impressive backlists of all time. Okay, there are a few duds in there (The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I’m looking at you) but, happily, the misfires have been few and far between. Having said that, I am quite unprepared for just how good Disclosure Day is.

First things first. It’s pointless to give too much information about the actual plot because, on paper, it does sound faintly preposterous. But part of the film’s strength is the way it flings viewers headlong into what seems like an unfathomable mystery and keeps us guessing as to where the story is headed, a position it maintains until the final furlong. And then, in that last stretch, it somehow manages to create a sense of pure wonder, recalling earlier hits like Close Encounters and ET.

The story begins in 2026, and the world stands poised on the brink of what looks suspiciously like World War 3. (Too close to home?) We are in the audience at a wrestling match, where we witness Dr Daniel Kellner (Josh O’ Connor) being arrested for theft – though at this stage, we have no idea what he’s supposed to have stolen. He is confronted by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of a powerful and secretive government organisation called Wardex, and we learn that Scanlon is Daniel’s former employer. Daniel manages to escape and goes on the run with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), but even she doesn’t know what he’s accused of.

The action cuts to Kansas, where TV weather girl Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) unexpectedly starts speaking in tongues on live TV – and shortly thereafter, discovers that she has inherited incredible skills. It’s clear that she and Daniel are linked somehow – but it’s quite some time before I begin to suspect that the two of them will be the ones to make the titular disclosure that will resolve decades of lies and subterfuge…

Disclosure Day is a powerful and compelling drama that has about it something of those paranoid 70s Cold War thrillers, where two opposing forces struggle for supremacy. Leading the fight for disclosure is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), another former Wardex employee, who seems prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the truth is handed to the public. Scanlon and his team are the ones who want to keep everybody in the dark, convinced that ordinary people will be unable to accept the truth without losing their collective minds. While all the actors here do exemplary work, Blunt is required to handle most of the heavy lifting, going through a whole range of personas as the various twists and turns of David Keopp’s script – co-written with Spielberg – demands ever more of her. I’ve long been convinced she’s a terrific actor and here she finally gets the chance to really prove it.

And it’s not all talk: there are hair-raising action set pieces (a car/train interface is a particular high point); a scary sequence from Margaret’s childhood that has an eerie prescience; and recreations of key events in UFO folklore (and yes, I’m aware the American government prefers the term UAP – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon). Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography looks absolutely exquisite and veteran composer John Williams actually came out of retirement to provide another of his stirring scores. What’s not to like?

Whether this will bring in the punters is yet to be determined. I hope so. It’s proper grown-up filmmaking of the kind we don’t often see these days but it doesn’t help that it arrives in UK cinemas just as World Cup fever erupts. But those who have given up on Spielberg after recent more modest efforts are sure to find much to enjoy here.

And as ever, this is a big concept that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen available.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

28/06/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was a near-perfect movie, a fast-paced action adventure that harked back to the classic serials of the 1940s. It made a huge profit off a comparatively low budget, so – inevitably – there were going to be sequels. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) may not have had the perfection of their whip-tight progenitor, but were decent enough efforts in their own right. And that’s probably where the whole enterprise should have ended. 2008’s The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was – to put it mildly – a major miscalculation, despite being helmed by the usually dependable Spielberg. For a very long time, there were vague rumours of a fifth outing which remained exactly that. Rumours.

After all, Harrison Ford was getting a bit long in the tooth, so… maybe not?

But now, directed by James Mangold, and written (mostly) by Jez Butterworth and his brother John Henry, everyone’s favourite archeologist is back in the game. When we reunite with him it’s via a flashback. It’s 1944, the Germans are rapidly losing the war and, thanks to the wonders of de-aging software, Indy looks like his former self. He’s working alongside his old pal Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) and the two of them are attempting to rescue an ancient antiquity, the Lance of Longinus, from a Nazi train packed with loot. Indy has just been taken prisoner, but needless to say, he’s soon free and wandering the length of the train, looking for the artefact. Also present is Dr Voller (the always excellent Mads Mikkelson), who has already decided the lance is a fake but has discovered instead, on the same train, the titular device (or at least half of it), built by Archimedes and capable of… well, that would be telling. A lengthy action set-piece ensues and it’s pretty good, serving as a promising opener.

But then we move to 1969. Mankind has just landed on the moon and Dr Jones is now earning a crust as a University lecturer, though his students seem much more interested in listening to rock music and smoking dope. Retirement beckons and it’s made very clear that Indy has lost his mojo. Then along comes his Goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who is also very interested in the Dial of Destiny, but mostly because she plans to sell it to the highest bidder. To give her fair credit, Waller-Bridge gives the franchise a much-needed update, and she’s good on the smart-arse wisecracks, but I’m not sure I quite buy her as an adrenalin-powered action hero. Then again, if I can accept an eighty-year-old male in the role, maybe anything is possible.

The bad guys soon come a-calling and, what do you know, they’re being led by Dr Voller, who has his own unthinkable plans for Archimedes’ invention and won’t hesitate to carry them out. Indy and Helena team up and a game of cat and mouse ensues with some protracted chases. A lengthy sequence featuring Ford on horseback (or at least, his stunt double) is perhaps the film’s standout, but the problem here is that there are just too many of these pursuits. A really complicated one featuring our heroes in a tuk tuk definitely overstays its welcome.

There are frequent nods to those earlier films – some of which work, others which feel meh – and there’s a surprisingly touching scene when Indy tells Helena about what happened to his son and why he and Marion Crane (Karen Allen) are no longer an item. John Rhys-Davies shows up once again as Sallah, but is given very little to do here and, naturally, Helena has a keen young assistant in the shape of Teddy (Ethan Isadore), who seems able to turn his hand to most things, including at one point piloting a plane. As you do.

With a running time over two-and-a-half hours, it’s to Dial of Destiny’s credit that it never really runs out of steam and, if the final conceit is hard to swallow, well, this is a series that’s known for it’s supernatural reveals. (Just don’t overthink the space-time continuum stuff because, on reflection, much of it really doesn’t add up.) I leave feeling that I’ve been suitably entertained but, before I’ve even made the short walk home, I’ve thought of at least half a dozen questions that remain maddeningly unanswered.

So, this is far from the disaster I anticipated but, when held up against that brilliant opening shot of Raiders, it’s frankly not in the same league. I can’t help feeling that, now it’s out in the world, this particular treasure chest should be triple-locked and left in a quiet place to gather dust.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney