The master makes movie magic once more!
That’s how critics are reacting to Steven Spielberg‘s latest film, the sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, which sees the legendary filmmaker return to the topic of extraterrestrial beings and the philosophical implications of our place in the universe.
Disclosure Day tells the story of a U.S.-government led conspiracy to keep the existence of intelligent alien life a secret, and how those plans are upended by small determined group committed to “disclosing” the truth to a world on the brink of war and annihilation.
The film stars Josh O’Connor, Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell. Disclosure Day is written by Spielberg’s frequent collaborator David Koepp and the film’s creative team features Spielberg regulars like cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, editor Sarah Broshar and the great composer John Williams.
Reviews for the Universal Pictures started the hitting the internet on June 9, with the film set for a full global theatrical release on June 12. Currently Disclosure Day sits at 84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after 138 reviews. The film’s score on Metacritic currently sits at 74.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney was effusive in his praise for Disclosure Day, writing that “no living director better understands the magic of movies.” Rooney writes that the film has a “shared DNA [that] can easily be traced to Close Encounters and E.T. But as is fitting for a filmmaker pushing 80, awestruck innocence now co-exists with a more ruminative maturity, especially when touching on the secrecy, manipulation and deception of governmental power.” He adds, “as much as Spielberg’s early sci-fi, the new film kept taking me back to the moral and philosophical questions posed by 2002’s brilliant Minority Report.”
Impressed by the depth of the film, Rooney writes, “There are allegories that can be read about fear of the unknown breeding cruelty and exploitation, but Disclosure Day is first and foremost a propulsive yarn with thematic roots in hope, truth, empathy and perhaps even spirituality.”
In his 4 star review, the venerable Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw had fun with the “very enjoyable and entirely ridiculous space-alien conspiracy adventure” that is Disclosure Day, adding that the film “is cheerfully mischievous and deadly serious in equal measure.” “Only Spielberg could get away with taking two of the world’s best-known hoaxes – Roswell and crop circles – and treating them with judicious deadpan respect,” writes Bradshaw. “With heartfelt idealism, Spielberg also asks us to believe that should the ultimate truth come out, people everywhere would be terribly upset at the way captured aliens have been vivisected.”
IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich also praised Spielberg’s commitment to earnestness, despite making essentially a “fun and goofy popcorn movie.” Pondering the deeper significance of Disclosure Day, as well as the filmmaker’s advancing years, Ehrlich writes that with this film “modern cinema’s most unbounded storyteller has observed the siloification of life in the 21st century, it makes sense that he’s turned inward to understand why people are only growing further apart.” The critic reassures Spielberg fans that they will love the movie, writing, “A lifelong fantasist who’s matured into a master without ever growing up, Spielberg — now a half-century removed from Close Encounters — continues to delight in telling stories about regular people being subsumed into larger-than-life spectacle, and he’s as giddy as ever about replicating that experience for his audience.”
In another 4-star review, Empire‘s Dan Jolin writes that Disclosure Day seems every bit as personal to Spielberg as his last film, the semi autobiographical The Fabelmans, and that the filmmaker’s “pulse can be felt in every frame.” “Shot largely on 35mm film and buoyed by a stirring John Williams score, Disclosure Day feels like a welcome flashback to Proper Grown-up Cinema in this era of CG drenching,” writes Jolin. “Spielberg’s fluid visual mastery is evident throughout, including some delicious grace notes. In one scene, a TV-forecasted hailstorm is cheekily foreshadowed by a close-up of tumbling breakfast-cereal hoops; in another, the director frames a reflection of Blunt’s face in the back of a security guard’s crew-cut as Margaret snatches his thoughts: she is literally in his head. The film also features some of Spielberg’s best action in years, including a gripping high-speed train sequence that tugs you right back to his vintage Indiana Jones era.”
Vulture‘s Bilge Ebiri echoes the sentiment among critics that Disclosure Day is another extremely personal film from Spielberg. Ebiri writes that “Spielberg has always had one foot in the horror genre. Even though he hasn’t directed a horror movie since Jaws, his vernacular is that of horror, of unseen figures in the dark, of unspoken terrors and childhood traumas… In so many of his films, Spielberg tries to control and redefine something that is, on some level, unknowable and petrifying. There’s a similar feeling throughout Disclosure Day that the characters are confronting something traumatic and trying to find a way to the other side.” Ebiri adds, “Disclosure Day can be messy, but much of its beauty lies in that messiness. It’s an astoundingly personal film, and we can sense Spielberg trying to feel his way through the conflicting aspects of his vision.”
Monica Castillo at The AV Club wasn’t as enamoured with Disclosure Day as most critics, feeling that “the ambitious film is burdened by tangents, drawn-out conclusions, and a few loose ends that don’t neatly come together, losing the propulsive momentum that’s second nature to Spielberg.” Castillo writes that the film is mediocre only by Spielberg’s crazy high standards. “After so many decades of thought-provoking blockbusters, large-scale epics, thrillers that push the audience to the edge of their seats, and heartwrenching dramas, Spielberg has raised the bar so high for so long that not every one of his new films may be a masterpiece in his filmography (and the less said about Ready Player One, the better), writes Castillo. “While Disclosure Day doesn’t live up to the high standards he’s set, it’s still a thrill ride.”
The BBC’s Nicholas Barber was resolutely in the not-for-me camp, writing in his scathing review that Disclosure Day felt like “a drab X-Files episode, or a more conventional One Battle After Another, in which some people we don’t care about are hunted by some other people we don’t care about.” Barber took umbrage with Colin Firth’s character, writing that the Oscar winner was “a standard-issue baddie given standard-issue baddie dialogue.” Barber did concede, though: “Disclosure Day might not be so unsatisfying if you share the wide-eyed positivity that Spielberg puts into it.”