The movie walks, slowly, over ground well-trodden without bringing anything new to the screen. I think that's a pretty darn good summary.
Aliens. Government coverup. "The people can't handle the truth." Long exposition. John Williams bombastic score (he should have stayed retired). And the insulting cherry on the top is YET ANOTHER NON-ENDING.
I'm so tired of movies that don't tie up the story. Ooo. Let's leave it up to the audience's imagination. No. I paid good money to watch someone else's imagination. If I wanted to make up my own ending I'd have stayed home and written something original.
Another peeve is that the aliens are the same very tired little green men with skinny bodies and big heads. Lots of different kinds of ships, all the same aliens. Because, of course, all life in the universe is bilaterally symmetrical, shorter than humans, can breathe in our atmosphere, function in our gravity, and green/silver. Maybe those are the only ones that visit this backwater corner of the galaxy?
What we have here is two people who are two halves of alien intelligence, abducted when they were ten years old. The split is that the guy can understand the language, the woman can do mind reading woo-woo. There's a non-government company that works with the US government to scoop up all the alien goodies and profit off them while hiding the evidence. There's a small group within said non-government company that thinks the world should know.
The guy who can understand the language worked at the non-government company and stole a whole lotta weird looking drives worth of data. He's on the run to hand it off to someone else, only to be told he's the one who has to keep it. His girlfriend, who happens to be an ex-novice nun, brings the religious aspect in when they have to hide out for a night at her old convent. The woman is a weather girl (sorry ladies but that's the only way to say it - she's got a "hail shimmy" ffs) who suddenly starts speaking Russian after a cardinal wanders into her apartment.
Suddenly she's doing the mind reading woo-woo and speaks in that weird clicky language on air, but not after stopping to chat with a South Korean official of some kind who's having trouble with the guy translating so she sits down and speaks, what we can only assume to be, perfect Korean.
She goes on the run. The guy is on the run. There's mind control woo-woo using an alien artifact. There's a hella lot of shiny black cars and SUVs. Chase, chase, hide, hide, get to the people who want to reveal all.
The people who want to reveal all just happen to know how to bring the two people together to do really nothing except work together. The big reveal scene of them being abducted together is a nothing burger. She can use the alien artifact to do stuff. She does stuff with the alien artifact. Another chase scene to her TV station so they can do a big reveal.
The guys with black vehicles and black tactical gear take out the power. She uses the artifact to bring it back. The language guy uploads all the weird drives to the station's servers (fastest uploads I've ever seen in my life btw). She goes live. The guy in charge of the non-government company gives up and watches. The people in black leave. They get on worldwide news showing all the videos that language guy uploaded. Of course they start with Roswell, New Mexico and go from there.
The world picks it up. The pending WWIII is forgotten by everyone. The people who think the world should know literally wheel out a living alien. Said alien is a tall boi, stands up, and whispers to language guy. Language guy whispers to woo-woo lady. She goes in front of the camera. She does the non-ending. Cut to credits.
As you can see, absolutely nothing new to be had. If it weren't Spielberg this script would probably have been laughed out of every studio. It's tired.
A more polite person would call it a slow reveal. I'll call it what it is - too freaking long. They could easily have cut at least 30 minutes, if not more, and it wouldn't have been missed.
I kinda want my two and a half hours back.
