‘Disclosure Day’ is Spielberg’s best film in over 20 years

I put a question to my SFGATE colleagues just the other day that had them mulling for a bit: What’s the last great movie that Steven Spielberg directed? I’m not talking about a merely good film. The old man can put together a competent picture anytime he likes. I’m talking about an all-timer of a Spielberg movie, something that belongs up there with his best work, which includes “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.,” “Schindler’s List” and … you get the idea. When you’re a director who’s made not just one of the greatest movies of all time but several of them, audience members like me hope for (and oftentimes expect) greatness from you with every subsequent project. Such is the standard that Spielberg, father of the modern blockbuster, set for himself. It’s also a standard that, in my opinion, he has not reached since the release of “Catch Me If You Can,” his note-perfect caper film, back in 2002. The bulk of my colleagues agreed, which led to a much more pointed question: Is Steven Spielberg washed?

With the release this week of his latest movie, “Disclosure Day,” I can now tell you, the reader, that the answer is no. Steven Spielberg, much to my relief, is still very much Steven Spielberg. This is the best film he’s made in nearly a quarter century. I have no idea if it’ll ascend to the status of an enduring classic — only time gets to decide that—but goddamn, what a movie.

If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of “Disclosure Day,” perhaps because it has a clunky title that reminds viewers like me of that one time Demi Moore sexually harassed Michael Douglas, I can get you situated real quick (and relatively spoiler-free). Steven Spielberg has made another movie about extraterrestrials. That’s really all you need to know, isn’t it? You know that Spielberg is in his element when he’s spinning a yarn about little green men from outer space. It’s a subject that aligns perfectly with his directorial sensibilities: the wonder of the unknown, the idea that we are not alone, kids who have serious daddy issues, things of that nature. So long as you’re not watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” you know that your alien story is in good hands with this man.

This time around, our story is about Daniel Kellner (rising star Josh O’Connor), a pencil-pusher at a shadowy defense corporation who opens the film having stolen a precious MacGuffin, among other things, from his boss Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). You know what big meanies the men in suits are in a Spielberg flick. Firth, operating at peak Colin Firth, plays his character no different. Scanlon wants his MacGuffin back and sends out a legion of underlings in black cars to capture Kellner and blow stuff up real good.

Meanwhile, a flighty weatherlady in Kansas City named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, flawless) sees a red cardinal fly into her apartment one day, and suddenly, she can read minds, speak fluent Korean and involuntarily break out into alien clucks in the middle of a live broadcast. Blunt’s weatherlady gets visions of O’Connor’s Kellner in her head and feels the urgent need to go to him despite having no idea where he is. At the same time, Kellner has to get the extraterrestrial artifact he stole from the bad men in suits to the only good one he knows (Oscar nominee Colman Domingo), who appears to be hiding out inside a studio soundstage somewhere in the Midwest. There’s also a lapsed nun played by Bono’s daughter.

By now, you’re already asking me, “Hey man, where are the goddamn aliens in all this?” Well, turns out that Firth’s bad guy has been overseeing a government plot to not only suppress evidence of close encounters of the third kind here on Earth but also video footage of the U.S. government doing unspeakable things to those aliens and exploiting their extraterrestrial resources for questionable purposes. Pick the allegory of your choice from that morsel. O’Connor not only wants the government to pay for his atrocities but also wants to “disclose,” on a single “day,” all of these secrets to the world at large.

This is where the Spielberg difference is most prevalent. Any movie can stage a 2.5-hour chase for some ET microfiche, but Spielberg (credited here with the screen story) uses the concept of a disclosure day to ask deeper questions. Can humankind handle this knowledge? Will people accept the existence of aliens, especially in a time of deepfakes? Can they accept it, especially if the aliens in question are a superior life-form? Could humans adopt this life-form as their new god and throw out all of the old religions? Spielberg makes time, all throughout “Disclosure Day,” to hammer away at these unanswerable questions. He also makes sure to throw in a brilliant comic sequence about how hard it is to run over your own cellphone with a sedan. All of that detail gives the action sequences much higher stakes than a cookie-cutter tentpole movie would. 

And those action sequences kick ass, especially a brilliant train crash sequence that perfectly echoes a toy train crash sequence from his last movie, the autobiographical “The Fabelmans.” I didn’t pee once during “Disclosure Day.” Didn’t even think about doing it. I was way too invested in what was going to happen to all of the characters in it, and to humanity as a result. A lot of summer blockbusters tell you that the fate of humankind hangs in the balance. Here’s a movie that actually shows you that view from the precipice. So when we finally reach the movie’s climax, you, the viewer, are just as riveted by what’s unfolding as the characters are.

This isn’t a perfect movie. Spielberg holds off on his cornier instincts for the bulk of “Disclosure Day” but eventually dips into the simple syrup. Firth misses his dead wife. O’Connor and Blunt miss their respective lost childhoods. A kiddie actor encounters a bunch of friendly CGI animals (my daughter said they looked like AI) and then walks into a super bright light. That, too, you expect from a Spielberg picture. After all, “Jaws” was the last utterly unsentimental movie he made, and that was half a century ago. But for “Disclosure Day,” Spielberg reins in those impulses as best he can and delivers not only one of the best movies of the summer but the best film that he himself has made in decades. The old man’s still got it, and we’re lucky to have him.