Spielberg and Aliens, goes together like Bacon and Eggs, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Superman and the Daily Planet. A subject that I sense he won’t ever be never done with. If eternal he would be constantly making a wide variety of films relating to aliens. To him they can be either friend or foe, but one concrete constant has remained. They are vastly smarter than humans. “Disclosure Day” is no different. Aliens are among us and that information has been suppressed. A notion that has been among conspiracy theorists for over sixty years and in this they finally gets its day.  Film is about truth, and truth not owned but needs to be shared a nice concept, but the result is a loaded film with multiple themes that at times feels too cramped to breathe. “Disclosure Day” is a great technical film, it has all the earmarks of a master working at his craft, but is dragged down by an unnecessary dense script that telegraphs where it goes to the point of feeling numb to the whole thing.  We know where it will conclude throughout.

What also hurts the script is there is no real danger among any character in the film-really everyone is ok and unharmed. There is a level of safety for all the characters that is never challenged. And no one ever transitioned from who they were at the start. The plot and the character don’t evolve, they just are doing things. The first act and even the second act were enticing though. The performances are terrific. Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, and Josh O’Conner along with Colman Domingo are sensational. The supporting roles are amazing as well.

An interesting component to this is Spielberg’s desire to insert frames of windows and glass as barriers to the action. The usage of windows and talking about windows is constantly brought up. It is an interesting metaphor that these panes of glass are sort of filters that guard and shield us to the truth. As fragile as they are, they still provide an obstacle to truth. There is also a subplot of religion and faith and how it gets intersected with the discovery of alien beings that plays out a little pretentious. 

Aliens as a subject always leads a conversation about truth-which is what it’s really about-truth, and aliens are a vessel for that theme. It is interesting that David Koepp wrote this script almost immediately after writing “Black Bag” which was all about lying.  Very interesting indeed.

 “Disclosure Day” isn’t Spielberg best, nor will be mentioned as even in his top twenty best, but aliens is a just enough of a compelling subject go see -just don’t expect the truth of the film to be accepted as it was in the film. 7.5/10