‘Disclosure Day’ Review: Steven Spielberg Brings Us His Most ‘Ancient Aliens’ Take Yet (And That’s a Compliment)

Steven Spielberg knows how to make a blockbuster. Disclosure Day proves that, even if it isn’t Spielberg’s best alien-inspired adventure.

The iconic director collaborated with David Koepp, who also recently wrote Jurassic World: Rebirth along with other projects with Spielberg, to bring us straight into a world where the government is trying to hide the existence of extra-terrestrial beings. Much like Koepp’s other work, it is hard to follow a lot of Disclosure Day. A slow build that leads to a brilliant final act, the movie as a whole is good but not the best movie that Spielberg has ever made.

Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is living a happy normal life with her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell), when she suddenly is overcome on national television, speaking an alien language. Her storyline crashes into Daniel Kellner’s (Josh O’Connor) decision to help Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) finally tell the world what is really out there.

For the vast majority of Disclosure Day, the audience is following Daniel fight against the clock as Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) tries to stop him. Basically, imagine the idea of everyone storming Area 51 but jammed into a 2+ hour runtime. And imagine that it resulted in more than just some fun memes on social media.

Unsurprisingly, Spielberg made a movie that is ultimately fun to watch. Incredible action sequences, a John Williams’ score, and Spielberg’s take on aliens being real? What more could you want? But it is, at times, a mess of a story. Whether that’s by design is up for debate but it does, ultimately, lead to making the movie feel more like one of Spielberg’s fun action-comedies and less like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Emily Blunt brings a powerhouse performance

As tends to be the case with Spielberg’s films, the performances are always top notch. Blunt plays Margaret with such compassion and beauty throughout the film that you also wish she would look at you and tell you the thing you really need to hear. It does feel though, at times, like she is continually playing the same emotional beat with her. Mainly because we are thrown into their story for a very short period of time.

For all of Blunt’s characters, Margaret is a bit more soft spoken and compassionate than her other characters and it leads to a beautiful balance between Margaret and Daniel. Daniel is mathematical, incredibly literal, and Margaret takes moments to connect with people and understand what they need from her.

It all gives Blunt the ability to be the emotional core for the audience, especially when so much of Disclosure Day is spent with us not really knowing what is going in their world.

Very much an Ancient Aliens vibe

I spent a lot of Disclosure Day feeling like Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from Ancient Aliens in the now famous meme. Maybe that’s because Spielberg himself has talked about alien life and his beliefs. But most of Disclosure Day reads as the kind of movie where the creatives are essentially having a conversation with the audience who they assume also believes aliens are out there. Luckily, that works for me.

It was shocking though how funny I found parts of Disclosure Day. Mostly Jackson trying to navigate what his girlfriend was telling him but it meant that it felt more like an Indiana Jones kind of action movie than something on the more serious side.

The film does make it hard to talk about because whatever you may not enjoy in it goes out the window in the final act, which is one of Spielberg’s best to date. But overall, if you’re a fan of a Spielberg blockbuster, you’re going to have a thrilling time with this one.

Disclosure Day hits theaters on June 12.

(featured image: Universal Pictures)

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