Throughout his career Steven Spielberg has delivered some truly great sci-fi films including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, War of the Worlds, Ready Player One and the iconic E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. His latest film Disclosure Day is bringing him back to the genre with a great cast including Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Could his latest foray into the world of sci-fi deliver the same iconic results or will it be a disclosure not worth revealing?

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Disclosure Day follows a TV weatherperson and a government whistleblower who are thrown together in a life-or-death race against time to reveal the truth about the existence of aliens that will change human history forever.

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It’s been quite a while since we got to head down the conspiracy rabbit hole with Spielberg, and I was excited to return to this space. Like most I had my own theories of what it was going to be and the hope that it could be some connection to Close Encounters. The result was a great ride, albeit not perfect, but one that was vintage Spielberg.

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The film wastes no time dropping you right into a story in progress which I was concerned was going to hurt but helps to let it get going and not waste a lot of time setting up. That doesn’t stop it from having some other elements that weren’t needed in extending the runtime but still worked. The first act is excellent as we are led into the meat of it all without understanding anything that is really happening, allowing it to build the mystery to where it is heading.

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Even though we know where it is all going the journey keeps us guessing about their connections and ultimate plan to expose the truth. There are plenty of elements that feel borrowed from other stories or ideas, but none that bothered me or felt like it was just being rehashed. Instead, it was Spielberg infusing his own vision and beliefs of the unknown to tell his own story. There are some side journeys involving a monastery and relationships that offer little to the story other than the hopes in injecting faith and humanity into the bigger picture but fall a little flat.

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The film doesn’t let up much throwing in more action pieces than I expected, but none of them are anything we haven’t seen before with most generic right down to the stereotypical government black vehicles. It is a bit hokey with how easy they keep thwarting the trained bad guys, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still fun to watch. Had Spielberg injected some of the magic of E.T. in these kinds of sequences maybe they would have stood out more, but then it would just lack more originality, so who knows.

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The cast are all fine with some underused, but it’s Blunt that stole the film for me. She is all over the place emotionally which adds some interesting moments to her performance while still being humorous even though sometimes too much and loses the punch of what it is trying to get across. The visuals are great for the most part with the exception of the animals which sadly play a big part in some scenes. They look fine, but with the current ability of CGI you would think they would come across more realistic despite you could argue the reasoning behind it with the story.

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