Friends, I want to believe. (See what I did there?) I want to believe that Steven Spielberg is still the director who shaped my growing cinematic sensibilities as a child of the 1990s. After two movies though that I found decidedly… lackluster… my faith has been shaky. Walking into the theater, this critic, was nervous. 

Disclosure Day sees Spielberg return to a bit of a cinematic happy place for the veteran director. Take a moment to think back on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., War of the Worlds… heck, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Are you getting my drift? Aliens, my friends. Steven Spielberg always comes back to extra terrestrials.

I too, often come back to aliens. I grew up on The X-Files. In elementary school, my best friend and I called ourselves Mulder and Scully. Believe it or not, I was Scully. Far too many years later, I may or may not still find alien narratives fascinating. As soon as this “UFO Event Project” was announced, I was ready and it took no time at all for this movie to pull me straight in. Spielberg and writer David Koepp make the refreshing decision to drop us right into the narrative. None of the often expected, clumsy world building. No needless exposition dumps. No painfully forced character development. 

We’re plunged straight in to find Josh O’Connor as Daniel Kellner already trying to escape from the evil Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth in a rare against-type role). We don’t know who these people are, only that Kellner and girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) are running from Scanlon’s shadowy pseudo-government organization. From this point, we’re running along with them. 

Josh O’Connor has been a Piercing Pop Culture mainstay in the last year, and I must admit my bias. I will always show up for a Josh O’Connor role. I’ve been there since Emma and believe it or not, O’Connor’s portrayal of Prince (Now King) Charles in The Crown is the only Prince Charles in media I’ve actually sympathized with… this includes the real one. 

So much of Josh O’Connor’s filmography to this point is made up of stately period pieces and moody indie dramas. Disclosure Day partners him with an A+-List director on a large scale, summer “popcorn film”. This is his Harrison Ford moment and I am here for it. 

O’Connor certainly feels like an unconventional choice in Disclosure Day. Still a relative newcomer to the industry, he’s not top-of-mind for a summertime popcorn picture like this. At the same time though, he taps into not only a charismatic intelligence, but also a relatable reluctance. With a few films to simmer, I could see O’Connor finding a Harrison Ford vibe… think Indiana Jones when he lets himself be academic. 

Spielberg, meanwhile, crafts a quieter, more studied mood in Disclosure Day. This is a movie that’s less Independence Day (1996). Instead it feels closer to more contemplative sci-fi like Spielberg’s own Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but equally as often, he feels to be inspired by the drive-in, sci-fi of the 1950s. Movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The Thing from Another World are most certainly chief influences here. 

My favorite Steven Spielberg films come when he’s basking in his passions. When he doesn’t shy away from letting his obsessiveness show. Movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and 1941 are two where he’s not afraid to dive a bit deeper and play in his joy and get a little weird. This is where Disclosure Day sits for me, a work of classic, even pulpy science-fiction that’s not afraid to play in the world of UFO’s and government conspiracies. I was fascinated from start to finish and to be honest, can’t wait to see it again.