Closer Encounters

Steven Spielberg has given us movies of all types, and most of them have been wildly successful.

Think “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” and “Minority Report,” one of my favorites.

But he hasn’t dipped his toe in science fiction for awhile, and remedies that shortfall with his newest sci-fi thriller, “Disclosure Day.”

The basic story involves a former employee of the Wardex Corporation, a federal contractor that’s the official gatekeeper of files proving that Earth has been visited over the decades by extraterrestrials.

Brit actor Josh O’Connor, probably best known for his sensitive portrayal of a young Prince Charles in the TV series “The Crown,” is Dr. Daniel Kellner, who has turned whistle blower and is determined to release all the stolen UFO evidence in one massive data dump. Preferably worldwide and on TV.

The movie begins at a pro wrestling match and, thanks to the in-your-face action, you almost want to dodge the sweat pouring off the brutes pummeling each other in a packed arena. It’s there that Kellner is making good on a plan to swap his back pack with the digital archive for the safe return of his girlfriend, Jane.

But the movie isn’t even ten minutes old, so you know that the plan will backfire and Kellner eventually will get both the archive and the girl, at least temporarily.

Meanwhile, Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon, played by Brit actor Colin Firth (do you detect a pattern in casting?) declares Kellner a fugitive from justice and mounts an APB assault on the pair, backed by dozens of seemingly sinister hired guns. Men, of course, in black.

But that’s merely half the story.

In Kansas City, TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild, played by Emily Blunt, has a close encounter with a cardinal that flies through her kitchen window and briefly lands on her kitchen table. The bird’s sudden appearance awakens psychic powers in Fairchild.

She arrives late to work, nearly missing her weather broadcast. The camera light comes on and she begins her delivery but freezes before she starts speaking Russian, followed by weird clicking noises. And then she faints on live TV.

Scanlon recognizes the clicking noises as an alien language and targets Fairchild as well.

So the chase is on, on two fronts.

Daniel and Jane, looking for a safe place to hide out, end up at a monastery where Jane had been a novitiate. Jane, meanwhile, is growing curious about Daniel’s obsession with the backpack and its contents. And confronts him about his troubling secrecy.

Daniel then reveals to Jane that Wardex has been conducting experiments on alien captives, as well as reverse engineering their technology, and tells her he intends to make the information public. He finds them both a safe house and leaves Jane so he can join other Wardex whistle blowers in their quest to broadcast a Disclosure Day.

Thanks to Margaret’s TV meltdown, and her growing psychic abilities, she discovers that Daniel has been captured by Scanlon’s men and is being held at a black site.

Blunt has proven her mettle in the “Quiet Place” movies, directed by her husband, actor John Kosinski, so she’s thoroughly convincing as an action star. And that background serves her well in one of the movie’s best scenes involving a moving train.

And her performance is likely to earn her an Oscar nomination. She’s that good.

Spielberg, on the other hand, likely won’t be so applauded. “Disclosure Day” is mostly captivating, and enhanced by Spielberg’s longtime friend and composer John Williams’ score, but the movie left me with some questions that only a second viewing might better answer.

Already, the final scene has proven to be the most divisive of the director’s career.