I’ve always said Steven Spielberg movies are like James Bond movies – even the bad ones are still highly watchable. That’s not to say DISCLOSURE DAY is bad, but it is one of the notable director’s more challenging films to take in, and also feels quite topical with its subject matter. The logline asks the questions “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people.” The idea of alien visitors, and more importantly how we have interacted with them, is the central focus of the new movie, which follows two protagonists. Josh O’Connor plays Daniel Kellner, a computer hacker who in Edward Snowden-like fashion has stolen top secret info from a shadow government agency, and is now on the run. We quickly learn this agency’s leader Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) will stop at nothing to prevent Daniel from revealing their secrets, even kidnapping Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) to use as leverage. Meanwhile in Kansas City, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is a weather woman for a news network who dreams of being an anchor, living with her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell), a musician who seems more focused on his own dreams. Margaret begins acting strangely, speaking in Russian, reading the thoughts of others, and it all culminates to her doing the weather live and breaking into an alien language. Something is awakening in her, and she must find out why and how to deal with it. Behind the scenes, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) is a man in the shadows trying to help Daniel achieve his goals, and soon becomes aware of Margaret, and it seems inevitable these three must connect against very intense and dangerous odds.

Based on a story by Spielberg, with a screenplay by David Koepp, DISCLOSURE DAY is a beautiful film and carefully crafted, and has a lot of the expected strengths one has come to expect from a Steven Spielberg movie, especially the magnificent score by John Williams, who is still turning in impressive music at the age of 94. It’s polished and engaging, and works well as a suspense thriller with just enough science fiction to make it a respectable genre entry. But this is not CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and I fear it won’t become an instant classic, primarily due to it’s jarring opening and somewhat ambiguous ending. The opening sequence drops the audience into the middle of a conspiracy we know little about, and as the film unfolds we begin to piece together how we got here. Sometimes that technique works well for a thriller, but here it’s a tad off-putting, as there’s so much to unpack that the audience may feel some initial frustration rather than intrigue. This is a mystery in many ways, and a “chase” movie that takes a few of our main character on a desperate journey of evasion. But the secondary story of Emily Blunt’s character trying to decipher her unusual new abilities is the more interesting of the two main elements. Josh O’Connor seems to be a popular actor at the moment, but I just didn’t find his role here very charismatic or even all that likable. Eve Hewson is slightly more interesting as his counterpart for most of the story, though I couldn’t help noticing how much she looks like a younger Emily Blunt, almost distractingly so. As a comparison with my gripe on O’Connor, the movie casts Wyatt Russell as Emily Blunt’s boyfriend, and I felt Russell would have made a stronger lead, which is disappointing as he’s given little to do here other that look shocked. When the film eventually brings the two main characters together, it does feel more entertaining, even if it takes a bit of time getting there. Colin Firth has fun playing the ruthless government big wig chasing after our unlikely heroes, and he’s effectively nasty when needed. And Colman Domingo plays a sort of voice behind the scenes helping the good guys here, building something in the background every time we see him… and I have to admit, I couldn’t figure out what exactly he was up to until he reveals it at just the right moment.

This is a movie that has moments of greatness, but the in between stuff is hit and miss, making the big exciting moments feel sometimes like too little too late. One sequence involving a train is particularly thrilling and feels like classic Spielberg action, but it also doesn’t last long enough to completely blow us away. As the story builds to its big finish, it does deliver some pretty important visuals and concepts that will certainly make an impression on audiences, and feels rather timely considering the recent government release of UFO footage and documents that definitely lead us to believe in the idea that we are not alone. But right as the climax unfolds and has its big reveal, the movie abruptly ends. In some ways it could be Spielberg asking us “now what”? Now that the information is revealed in a BIG way, what would you do with it? I felt like the finale was lacking one last big revelation, or one last moment of punch to give the audience a nice payoff for everything. It’s not a bad ending per se, but I can see it leaving some feeling unsatisfied, especially after sitting through the rather lengthy two hour and 25-minute run time. At this point in my life, I’m just happy directors like Steven Spielberg are still making movies, still giving us grand productions that are ambitious and masterfully executed. This may not be one of his best, but it definitely shows he still knows how to make engaging movies, and it’s a film that does make us ask some pretty serious questions… some of which we’re just starting to get answers to.

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