Movie Review: ‘Disclosure Day’ is classic Spielberg

“Disclosure Day” invites you into its world with a kick to the face. Or maybe it’s a stomp. Whatever it is, this opening sequence, in a garish professional wrestling ring, is bound to wake you up and make you wonder, first, if you’re in the right movie, and second, if Steven Spielberg has lost it.

Don’t worry, he hasn’t. In fact, he’s on fire, making a movie that feels like the kinds he used to churn out regularly in the first half of his career.

And he doesn’t make you guess for long where he’s going: The camera soon finds the one person in this frenzied crowd who is as worried and befuddled as we are: His name is Daniel Kellner, he’s played by Josh O’Connor (the perfect “grown up” Spielberg kid), and he is already in the middle of his adventure. The suits have found him, put a gun to his side and confiscated his backpack. A girl, Jane, has been taken hostage. And we as the audience are on a non-stop ride of discovery, wonder and thrills and, thankfully, no more wrestling.

“Disclosure Day,” in theaters Friday, is a classic, big-hearted Spielberg adventure through and through, with ordinary people rebelling against shadowy secret keepers in the name of the truth. Indiana Jones wanted antiquities in museums for all to see. Daniel, and the team of people who convinced him to steal files from a private cybersecurity firm, want the world to know that there is life elsewhere and they have made contact.

Nearly 50 years after Roy Neary’s close encounter, Spielberg isn’t so much asking questions this time: He’s blowing the whistle, in classic paranoid conspiracy thriller style (although this is decidedly more romantic than 70s-era cynical), with a turtlenecked Colin Firth as the malevolent leader of WARDEX, the company seeking to keep this information under wraps.

The story, conceived by Spielberg and scripted by David Koepp, finds us in a time and place that looks like our own. Attention is on a global conflict brewing — there are passing references to World War III, and some hysterical hoarding at the local gas station — but on a certain level everyone is going about business as usual, including local Kansas City, Missouri, broadcaster Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who is trapped in weather girl mode but dreams of reporting serious news.

She’s a little flighty and unsettled, we’re told, but then things start getting deeply weird: Suddenly she’s slipping in and out of different languages, knowing extremely personal details about strangers, and divining all sorts of information about Daniel and the other players in this operation. Margaret and Daniel are clearly on a path toward one another, with the men in the black SUVs on their tail.

As in many Spielberg films there is a spiritual element to the proceedings of “Disclosure Day,” with the believers, the skeptics and the scared all crashing into one another and slouching toward revelation. Daniel’s girlfriend, Jane (an excellent Eve Hewson), is a former nun who has questions and concerns about the utility of the information. And the maestro of this operation is Hugo, a calm and somewhat inscrutable former WARDEX employee, played by Colman Domingo. He is soft coaching his unlikely heroes through the situation while he oversees what appears to be the construction of a set. It always comes back to movies, doesn’t it?

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Many of the greatest pleasures of “Disclosure Day” are wrapped up in our own Spielberg literacy. The movie language is unmistakably his, with shadows and lens flare and smoke, blown out lights and wet streets and all. His set-pieces are old fashioned, tactile and delightfully sane, from car chases to a thrilling sequence involving a train — apparently a dream of his since he made “Duel.” And the John Williams score, a very undeniably John Williams score, is the kind that may produce goose bumps.

You’re never not aware that you’re watching a movie in the silly ways too: Blunt’s hair and makeup are suspiciously styled throughout, even after a rainstorm and days on the run. We’re never quite rooted in a place despite all the talk otherwise: One might think with all the driving everyone is doing that the distances between Kansas City, Indiana and the D.C. area aren’t all that far. The CGI animals look like CGI animals. And for all the specificity of a specific date for a specific character’s childhood, in 1996, said child’s bedroom, and pajamas, look perhaps more suited to 1966. But maybe these are just details that stick out on the first watch, the ones that will fade into the scenery as the decades go by.

While the emotional trajectory of these characters was not something I found myself especially wrapped up in, despite the good acting and sharp script, the film itself is a profoundly emotional experience in other ways. Spielberg’s last three movies have all felt like farewells in some way, but maybe that’s just projection. It would be wrong to think of “West Side Story,”
“The Fabelmans” and “Disclosure Day” as part of an encore. But they do share an unapologetic sentimentality. Spielberg has often been wistful, warm and glassy eyed in his films, but maybe this is the kind of poignancy that comes with age. It just hits a little harder.

Did “Disclosure Day” make me believe in aliens or want to seek out truther documentaries about “ unidentified anomalous phenomena ” however? Eh …? Mostly, it just reminded me that I believe in Spielberg. Always have.

“Disclosure Day,” a Universal Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “action/violence, some bloody images, and strong language.” Running time: 145 minutes. Three stars out of four.