What’s it about?

Danny (Josh O’Connor) is on the run from his sinister-as-they-are-powerful employer, having stolen evidence of contact with alien life. At the same time, Margaret (Emily Blunt) is visited by a small bird that makes her weird.

What’d we think?

This might be a hot take, but Steven Spielberg really has a knack for making entertaining movies. Disclosure Day wastes absolutely no time, trusting the audience to keep their head above water as they’re thrown into the deep end of an ongoing conspiracy inside a conspiracy. Spielberg has proven himself as a master of multiple genres, and Disclosure Day is as much of an action thriller as it is a sci-fi conspiracy. There’s some Minority Report in there, some E.T., and a healthy dash of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but Disclosure Day stands as its own thing. The movie revisits some themes that are clearly close to Spielberg’s heart, destiny, privacy, truth, benevolent little alien guys, and ultimately ends up being an incredibly hopeful movie.

It’s no surprise to say that a Spielberg film shot by Janusz Kaminski ends up looking like a million bucks, but there’s no flash to his direction – Spielberg has mastered the subtle long take that doesn’t draw attention to itself, controlling the audience’s attention like a conductor with an orchestra. Speaking of which, an original score from John Williams is always a welcome addition, and while it doesn’t have the immediate earworm qualities that came from some of their other collaborations (Jaws, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park) that can hardly be considered a negative.

Disclosure Day is thrilling, thoughtful, and incredibly entertaining. While I’ve got a few small and specific criticisms (that I can’t really go into due to spoilers), the movie is a master of his craft telling a story he clearly loved to tell.