AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Last month, the U.S. government released dozens of previously classified case files, videos and photographs related to reports of unidentified flying objects. The public reacted with both excitement and skepticism, a mix that critic Bob Mondello guesses will also greet Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller "Disclosure Day."
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Steven Spielberg has been more or less single-handedly making the world safe for aliens...
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MONDELLO: ...Since 1977. Other filmmakers tended to imagine monsters dropping from the skies, but Spielberg built mashed potato mountains and later left trails of Reese's pieces...
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HENRY THOMAS: (As Elliott, yelling) E.T.
MONDELLO: ...While urging audiences to look to the heavens not with terror, but with wonder.
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THOMAS: (As Elliott, yelling) Not so high. Not so high.
MONDELLO: He's at it again in "Disclosure Day," another roller coaster of a sci-fi yarn, though no one's looking at the heavens this time 'cause the alien visitors are already here. The new film explores this notion on two tracks. One involves a tech whiz played by Josh O'Connor, who's determined to expose a shadowy corporation's hiding and exploiting of aliens.
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EVE HEWSON: (As Jane Blankenship) What did you steal?
JOSH O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) Secrets. People have a right to know the truth.
MONDELLO: The other involves an increasingly discombobulated TV weathercaster, played by Emily Blunt, who starts having a very strange day when a cardinal flies in her window, and she finds herself suddenly speaking fluent Russian and Korean, and on her next weathercast...
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EMILY BLUNT: (As Margaret Fairchild) Good morning, Kansas City. Let's take a look at today...
MONDELLO: ...Speaking something not quite human.
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BLUNT: (As Margaret Fairchild) Today's (non-English language spoken).
MONDELLO: This gets the attention of the shadowy corporation, and soon the two storylines are weaving themselves together, say, when the tech whiz replays the broadcast for his girlfriend.
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O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) Do you understand what she's saying?
HEWSON: (As Jane Blankenship) It's gibberish. I can't understand it.
O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) And I can.
MONDELLO: ...Which raises more questions than it answers but also sets in motion...
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O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?
MONDELLO: ...Car chases, escapes to safe houses, cars crashing through safe houses, cars dragged by freight trains into the paths of other freight trains.
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MONDELLO: Basically the whole Spielbergian catalog augmented by something else the tech whiz stole - an elongated duodecahedron (ph). The technical term they use in the film, if I heard correctly, is thingy that fits in your palm but should be touched only with rubber gloves and, happily for David Koepp's screenplay, can do pretty much whatever is required of it at any given moment.
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HEWSON: (As Jane Blankenship) What is it?
O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I'm going to show you.
MONDELLO: You can find all of this preposterous and still find it preposterously entertaining. Spielberg has accumulated a half century's worth of new cinematic tricks and a bit of worldly wisdom since he first considered how humankind might react to a close encounter. Back then, he innocently imagined scientists and aliens making music together. This time...
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COLIN FIRTH: (As Noah Scanlon) The human race cannot accept what we know.
MONDELLO: ...He's dead set on beating back the idea that a world riven by division might shrink from contact entirely. He considers the spiritual implications...
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ELIZABETH MARVEL: (As Sister Maura) Why would he make such a vast universe, yet save it only for us?
MONDELLO: ...And the political consequences...
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FIRTH: (As Noah Scanlon) That truth will upend all established order across the entire world.
MONDELLO: ...And the way we now process information. Spielberg pictures us at the moment of disclosure, staring not at the stars as we did in the '70s and '80s, but at screens, cellphones, laptops, TVs...
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COURTNEY GRACE: (As NBC Anchor) We're interrupting our coverage...
MONDELLO: ...Because they are the way we now interact with the world, including the IMAX screen you'll want to see "Disclosure Day" on. And he urges us to wonder along with him whether the discovery of something bigger than ourselves might allow us to look past wars and crises and maybe fix what's broken in society, in our relationship with nature, in us. Spielberg remains stubbornly optimistic about that in "Disclosure Day" and also about the capacity of movies to open minds and unfreeze hearts. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "LISTEN...") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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