★★★ (3 out of 4)
Steven Spielberg has spent of fair chunk of his illustrious career telling us not to rule out the existence of alien life. In many ways, “Disclosure Day” is a throwback to the master’s “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” with a nod to “Minority Report,” “War of the Worlds” and, of all things, “The Post”—freedom of the press being what it is in Trump America. In other words, if science proves aliens are real, will a threatened church and state —fearing a loss of control— want to make sure we don’t know about it?
That’s one of the few new wrinkles in “Disclosure Day,” a greatest hits compilation in which Spielberg reprises his guiding insight that empathy will set us free, whether directed at each other or little green men. It helps that no one knows how to deliver full-body chills that knock you sideways like Spielberg. And that’s true even when fuzzy thinking invades the script that David Koepp has extrapolated from Spielberg’s own idea.
Steve Spielberg repeats himself in this alien close encounter, but he hasn’t forgotten how to deliver full-body chills.
Now pushing 80, this indisputable cinema icon doesn’t even try to hide his connection to Peter Pan and Walt Disney, Spielberg’s only rival for 20th century cultural dominance over family entertainment. Some see Spielberg’s fundamental decency as an artistic flaw. I see it as the MO on which he spins fantasies that have fueled our imaginations for generations.
Spielberg’s gift for the emotional underpinnings of spectacle may be old hat to the cool kids, but its gives “Disclosure Day” its traces of heft and heart. It’s the script that trips him up by following conventional patterns when we want a revolution or at least a re-invention.
As “Disclosure Day” opens, the world is on the verge of WWIII. We’re at each other’s throats. The public is basically numb, but not Daniel Kellner, the cyber security expert played by disappointingly humorless Josh O’Connor. He’s just stolen proof of alien-human interaction from Wardex, a corporate arm of government secrecy run by Noah Scanlan (Colin Firth, also not enjoying his dimensionless villainy). Daniel’s hard drive shows alien captives dating back to Roswell in 1947, a year after Spielberg was born. If Daniel succeeds, the truth will be revealed on live feed on Disclosure Day.
The director then cuts to a local weather report coming to us from Kansas City by meteorologist Margaret Fairchild. Don’t yawn. Margaret is played by Emily Blunt, the livewire who sends the movie soaring. Blunt is just the comic and captivating energy source this movie needs. And Spielberg directs her with endearing appreciation. I don’t need alien help to predict a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Margaret has a dud boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell). Daniel fares far better in the soulmate department with Jane Blankenship (a wonderful Eve Hewson), a wannabe nun. Don’t ask. Just watch Blunt work her sexy, smartass mojo, delighting in whatever is occupying her head and body as a ticket to the big time. Imagine the surprise of the digital audience when Margaret starts speaking in tongues and guttural clicking sounds that the devious boys at Wardex interpret correctly as alien messaging.
What’s going on? Before the spoiler police at Camp Spielberg hijack my sources of communication, I will say that the secrets Margaret and Daniel harbor go back to their childhood, a place of honesty that the storyteller in Spielberg has honored from Day One. Margaret and Daniel can’t remember the details. Luckily, we have flashbacks to help us realize that these ETs need human help to get their message out before the world destroys itself, as it often threatens to do in life and especially at the movies. One thudding wrong note is the shoddy fx that shows aliens inhabiting animals.
While you try to suss out the thinly developed intellectual, spiritual, political and philosophical implications, Spielberg goes into action director mode and all is right with existence or at least with this movie. There’s a pummeling wrestling match, an ambush in a fire station, and a time-capsule worthy railway collision where Margaret and Daniel escape the baddies by leaping out of their car and grabbing onto a speeding train they need to hang onto for dear life. There are also moments of people staring at the sky in wonderstruck awe as the actors are directed to pull what is derisively called “Spielberg face.”
Except for the irresistible Blunt, there’s not much left for the actors, even Colman Domingo as another rogue employee at Wardex. Domingo is saddled with a windbag speech that spells out things better left to the mighty visuals, shot by the exemplary Janus Kaminski, and the score by Spielberg’s lifelong collaborator John Williams, 94, who proves again that age cannot wither nor custom stale his infinitely rousing variety.
There’s no denying that Spielberg is repeating himself in “Disclosure Day,” going back to the well to spin variations on a theme instead of exploring fresh ground that might astound us and him. But enough transfixing moments remain to remind us how this director at this time can still inspire awe. Insert Spielberg face here.