Disclosure Day
*** out of ****
2026, 145 mins., PG-13
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by David Koepp. Story by Steven Spielberg.
Produced by Kristie Macosko Krieger and Steven Spielberg
Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell
Walking into “Disclosure Day” I was anticipating a film in which Steven Spielberg plays his Greatest Hits which is exactly what you get. Spielberg has made a big deal about this latest film being the culmination of all his previous sci-fi films and it certainly combines elements of all of them while at the same time functioning as a conspiracy thriller circa the 1970s. The results are variable but mostly effective.
The film opens with a sequence in which Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a cybersecurity specialist, is confronted by Security Personnel from a company called WARDEX. The CEO of the company Noah Scanlon (a rather stiff Colin Firth) attempts to take a some information from Daniel that is top secret within the company as it could potentially reveal evidence of alien lifeforms. Daniel escapes with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) and they continue to be pursued for the information.
Another character that is wanted by WARDEX is Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) a meteorologist in Kansas City who, in a chilling scene, vocalizes an alien language while on the air. She also has a peculiar connection with animals and begins to have strange and unexplained premonitions about the people around her. She is overwhelmed by a need to travel to a certain location for an unknown rendezvous with Daniel.
The elements of previous films are apparent from the start. We get the characters who are overwhelmed by a particular vision and a hopeful alien encounter from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”; the connectivity and sadness from “E.T.”; the behavior of the Pre-Cogs from “Minority Report”; and the feeling of consistent chaos in motion from “War of the Worlds”. Spielberg seems nostalgic for himself, all throughout the picture but not in a way that feels overly derivative and is almost always satisfying.
There’s a combination of expository scenes that develop the conspiracy and thrilling moments that give the feeling of forward motion as the chase extends across the country. We get gripping chases, the one in which the characters evade capture by jumping a train from their moving car is especially exciting, moments of suspense, and intelligent dialogue that espouses interesting ideas about the alien visitors.
There’s also some clunky and simpleminded ideas about Christianity which are meant to make the faith worth questioning but ring hollow. We get some horrible CGI animals which are distractions instead of revelations, and the climactic mass reaction is almost totally unbelievable, especially given our current age of AI.
Spielberg and his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski go for a weathered and gritty look that eliminates the traditional Hollywood polish. They make use of flares and muted colors to enhance the mood of the film (I love the superimposition of Margaret’s face reflected in glass over the face of a pursuing agent). They also use long, fluid takes to elevate suspense as when Daniel moves through a field and into a car as he rescues his girlfriend.
“Disclosure Day” aims to be an intellectual challenge with an emotional payoff. The emotions are more potent than the intelligence which seems to contrive an examination of as opposed to provoking one. The emotions are more subtle with this one which avoids the sentimentality of previous Spielberg efforts and gives a sense of hope.
