Anybody remember Taken (2002), that limited series Spielberg produced? Or was associated with somehow, it’s all kind of blurry now. Really cool and quite terrifying show, anyway. Reason I’m thinking of it’s that, in Disclosure Day, the aliens visit people by taking on the form of animals—really sort of nerve-wracking animals at that: the fox* looks like the CGI version of Tod from The Fox and the Hound, all hyper-real, his fur straight from a shampoo commercial, the elk’s built like a mule deer, but with, sort of, elk antlers (maybe Roosevelt Elk?), and . . . and the raccoon, it tracks. Maybe raccoons are easy, I don’t know. In Taken, of course, the “shape of a . . .” the aliens take at one point are GIANT SQUIRRELS! (a character from the book or something the kid in the story was reading, I believe). It’s neat to see that continuity. Or, maybe, to give the aliens that kind of grace—one where they take their approach and perception into consideration, don’t want to startle us, aren’t here to prod and flatten us.
Or, maybe the way to say all this is just that Spielberg isn’t trying to invoke the terror Fire in the Sky or Communion did, here so, nice elk and foxes and raccoons track, and fit, don’t populate our sleep. Though it is comforting to see the Greys we all know and love, of course. Fresh from No One Will Save You, yes? Or, in this story, straight from Roswell.
And, before I get into any weeds: spoilers here, I’m sure. Be wary.
First spoiler: I really dig Disclosure Day. Feels like a place Spielberg’s been going to all along. I mean, he’s into aliens, King’s into people with mental powers. Me, being another Stephen (not remotely on Their scale), I’m into what I’m into too (slashers, trucks). But, whereas Close Encounters of the Third Kind was more about the wondrousness of this kind of meet-cute of the intergalactic variety—’You are not alone’—Disclosure Day is more the Amazing Stories version, which is about initial resistance due to fear of the unusual, then, finally, a sort of wary acceptance. I mean, Contact, Arrival, on and on, it’s not necessarily a new story, but it’s still a very good story. How Spielberg makes it cool, I think, is that you can sort of hear “Losing My Religion” playing in the background: there’s a cloistered nun here who is the real hero of the story, and she’s hardly in it at all.
As for that story, it’s pretty much a struggle for the Keymaster to meet up with the Gatekeeper, complete with action sequences where the good guys are woefully outnumbered and outgunned by a shady government agency. Some really strong set pieces in here; as with Raiders—as with everything he does: this is where Spielberg shines. I always say there’s no one better in a tight hallway than Wes Craven. Similarly, there’s no one better in a running and gunning chase scene than Spielberg. He manipulates that tension and activates your hope and despair like . . . like no one else, really.
It’s nothing but a good time, and he’s sanded the corners off things well enough for this have that kind of mass appeal that’s made him the success he is—this isn’t a dig, it’s a compliment. Jurassic Park similarly had its corners sanded off, and it’s still around. If anybody does a summer blockbuster better than the director who invented it, I’ve yet to see them on the marquee at the cineplex.
Another spoiler: I’m no movie reviewer. You’ve gotten no real synopsis here, no run-down of who’s in it, any of those Basic Things an Actual Review might deliver. It’s all in the trailer, though; no need for me to re-say it here.
What I can say that’s maybe new is that, yes, as you can tell from the occupation the main character has, this definitely has a The Howling ending, which I couldn’t be more thrilled about. Also thrilling: how in Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen, the terror of this supposed alien plopping down into NYC united the world against a common threat? Disclosure Day is sort of that, in that knowledge of aliens is bringing us back from the brink of self-destruction, but . . . Spielberg’s no Adrian Veidt. He doesn’t want us to be scared into our best selves. He wants to hold our hand as we, as a species, as a global society, look up into the sky. It’s a good impulse. And, who knows, it may be prescient, even: with the current circus the political scene is and how the world’s teetering because of it, maybe some of the UFO-type info being quietly released will finally crystallize something for us. It’ll be First Contact Day** in Star Trek land: for centuries we can look back on it as When Everything Changed.
I can’t wait.
*an alien story with a sort-of character NAMED “Fox” that has red hair? I do want to believe, yes . . .
** 5 April 2063—only thirty-odd years away. fingers crossed we make it . . .