Steven Spielberg returns to sci-fi with thrilling results

Perhaps Emily Blunt is a supreme being (if you’ve seen her performances in “The Devil Wears Prada” movies, you might be inclined to agree). This is the supposition that legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg brings to the table in his latest movie about extraterrestrials, “Disclosure Day,” a film that would make Fox Mulder jump for joy — or at least feel really vindicated. The truth is out there, Spielberg asserts, and maybe it doesn’t have to be so scary. Getting there might be, though. Spielberg wrote the story while screenwriter David Koepp crafts a 1970s-style paranoid thriller about the lengths that some people will go to to conceal evidence of extraterrestrial life, and the even further lengths that others will go to in order to reveal the truth about whether or not we’re really alone. Spielberg plunks us right into the action with all the grace of a boot to the face.

But there’s no better guide through a cinematic whirlpool. He and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski are at the height of their filmmaking powers in “Disclosure Day,” with breathtaking camera movements that relentlessly push, pull, spin, float and twist our perspective upside down, and yet the objective always remains clear. We drop in with our hero, a cybersecurity expert and whistleblower, Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), as he’s attempting to evade a team of elite thugs from his former employer, Wardex, while spiriting away a backpack full of incriminating video evidence going back 79 years — as well as a powerful alien tool.

Yes, “Disclosure Day” is “thingamajig cinema” of the highest order — you know, when a movie is about different people trying to get one little, well, thingamajig (virus, bomb, list, etc.)? It’s that. Spielberg and Koepp aren’t trying to shy away from or reinvent genre tropes here. Koepp’s screenplay is sturdy but in some places thin, even implausible, but Spielberg gives us the old razzle-dazzle to cover that up.

Spielberg is having a blast with this energetic yarn. Things do get pretty woo-woo and out there, so genre and familiar storytelling beats provide a grounding element and link to cinema history. Just when you thought every filmmaker had already shown us every possible kind of danger on a train, dating back to “The Perils of Pauline,” Spielberg goes and invents a new one. In fairness, he did tell us that this was his thing in “The Fabelmans,” and there’s a real sense of joy and playfulness in the bravura filmmaking of “Disclosure Day.”

With his cast, Spielberg has assembled an ensemble of heavy hitters who are simply the right people for the job. O’Connor is already so affable and lovable, we’re immediately on his side, as is Eve Hewson, who plays his loyal but vulnerable girlfriend Jane, a former novitiate who grapples with her faith. Hot on Daniel’s heels is the team from Wardex, led by scheming CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who puts his stentorian authority into playing against type. Also trying to retrieve Daniel is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), a Wardex director-gone-rogue, now leading the mission to disclose the extraterrestrial information. If you want someone to deliver a sermon of righteous integrity, Domingo is your man.

Then there’s Blunt, who has no equal when it comes to embodying barely managed chaos with varying shades of mania. She turns in an otherworldly performance among this all-star ensemble as Margaret, a perky weather girl in Kansas City, who suddenly starts speaking in unfamiliar languages (Russian and Korean), and then transmits an entirely inhuman set of clicks and growls while live on the air. She rapidly develops intense psychic powers that direct her to Daniel, otherwise a stranger to her.

Any further details should remain undisclosed, but the film is totally Spielbergian, as an action-packed and deeply humanist genre film. He’s also — as he’s conspiracy-theorizing about aliens and allowing O’Connor to crash a car into a house — commenting on cinematic storytelling. In “Disclosure Day,” nostalgia is a portal, the eyes are the window to the soul, and seeing is believing.

Tribune News Service