The Reel Review
A Kansas City TV meteorologist finds herself thrown into the world of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors after sudden, psychic visions link her to a government whistleblower being pursued by clandestine agents. Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo star in this sci-fi mystery/thriller from Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg.
Anyone expecting this to be a spooky sequel to Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be disappointed. Discovery Day is a much more ethereal and a refreshingly original experience. The first hour and a half of the story is mostly a chase thriller as Blunt’s character discovers that her sudden ability to speak every foreign language and know random people’s entire life stories is part of a greater otherworldly plan by aliens to prepare her for what will be a defining moment in human history.
Blunt and Domingo in particular give stellar, nuanced performances that explores how it is empathy that ultimately connects all living beings and answers the heady question: can humanity handle the truth about extraterrestrial life? The big finale is classic Spielberg – an eye-popping, dazzling wonder.
REEL FACTS
• Disclosure Day screenwriter David Koepp has denied claims that he was in contact with the U.S. government to use this film to “soft-launch” real life UFO disclosure, which has amped up in recent months.
• Steven Spielberg convinced five-time Oscar-winning music composer John Williams (Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. The Extraterrestrial and Schindler’s List) to come out of retirement for this 30th collaboration.
• Inspired by the ground-breaking 2017 New York Times article about UFOs and alien life, Spielberg wrote the story outline for Disclosure Day in the summer of 2023 before enlisting screenwriter David Koepp for their fifth collaboration after 1993’s Jurassic Park, 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, 2005’s War of the Worlds and 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
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