Earlier this year, former President Obama made waves in an interview when he said that he believed aliens were real, though he hadn’t seen any evidence of them during his time in office. President Trump accused Obama of revealing “classified information,” but then said that he would direct government agencies to release a number of images showing alien and extraterrestrial activity. The Pentagon rolled out those photos last month, but they were largely deemed fuzzy and inconclusive.

All this might sound like free publicity for Steven Spielberg’s new thriller, Disclosure Day, which is about a massive U.S. conspiracy to hide the fact that aliens have been visiting Earth for decades. If anything, though, the movie’s pleasures feel more retro than timely. It harks back to Spielberg’s greatest alien-themed hits, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and War of the Worlds. But it also feels like a throwback to the ’90s and early 2000s — the era of conspiracy-minded sci-fi series like The X-Files and M. Night Shyamalan’s eerie crop-circle thriller, Signs.

Disclosure Day stars Josh O’Connor as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity expert who decides to blow the whistle on his employer, Wardex. That’s a powerful agency, operating outside the boundaries of the government, that, for decades, has suppressed evidence of alien visits to Earth. Daniel has stolen video footage of these creatures, and he feels duty-bound to disclose it to the public — and to expose the sinister Wardex for having captured, detained and even tortured its share of aliens.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Mo., something strange happens when a TV meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild, played by Emily Blunt, tries to deliver her morning weather report. She freezes up on the air and begins making strange, guttural clicking noises, speaking what appears to be a kind of alien language. Around this time, Margaret also finds that she can read the minds of the people around her — a gift that comes in handy once she, too, goes on the run, with Wardex agents in pursuit.

Although Margaret and Daniel don’t know each other, they share a mysterious connection. Noah Scanlon, the head of Wardex, played by an unusually terrifying Colin Firth, is determined to stop them before they can make contact.

One of Scanlon’s deadliest weapons is a form of mind-control technology that he uses to try to get Daniel’s girlfriend, Jane, played by a very good Eve Hewson, to betray him. Whatever aliens might be capable of doing to us, the movie suggests, we have far more to fear from some of our fellow humans.

The mind-control bit is one of the movie’s cleverest sequences; a scene in which Margaret stages an almost Houdini-level escape is another. At 79, Spielberg is still the nimble filmmaker who delights in treating cinema as a magic trick. He’s also as skilled with actors as ever. Firth injects a palpable sense of anguish into the role of the movie’s big villain, and O’Connor brings an Everyman likability to his truth-telling tech whiz. But the most dazzlingly inventive work comes from Blunt.

Often a tough, sardonic screen presence, as in The Devil Wears Prada 2, Blunt gets to flex her proven action and comedy muscles in a more earnest emotional register. Like Richard Dreyfuss’ obsessed alien seeker in Close Encounters, Margaret is the kind of madly eccentric character Spielberg instinctively gravitates toward — someone who has little idea where she’s headed, but is convinced, rightly, that the truth really is out there.

There are other memorable characters, too. Colman Domingo gives a warm turn as a fellow whistleblower, who steers the operation from afar. And Elizabeth Marvel delivers a fine performance as a Catholic nun who, in one of the film’s more thoughtful asides, claims that the existence of aliens doesn’t threaten her belief in God. If anything, she says, it affirms that God, like the universe he created, is far bigger and more complex than humans like to acknowledge.

That’s a profoundly beautiful idea, though I wish Disclosure Day itself were a more complex movie. Spielberg’s storytelling is often described as overly sentimental, which isn’t always fair; his previous work, the semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans, was one of the most genuinely moving films of his career.

But sentimentality does ultimately overwhelm Disclosure Day, especially in the big finale, when the movie strains to bring its characters and indeed all of humanity together. Having shown us some of the terrible things powerful people are capable of, Spielberg makes a third-act lurch toward catharsis, as though desperate to suggest we aren’t beyond redemption as a species. Like the existence of alien life, our essential goodness is easy enough to believe in, but a lot harder to prove.

Speaking about the abortion storylines of the 2010s, a media researcher remarks on how “divorced” Hollywood seemed from the “political reality” of the era.

On our shows, from Parenthood to Private Practice to Better Things, characters were freely exercising their right to choose, with support from sympathetic loved ones and reassuring medical professionals. Meanwhile, out in the real world, the rising Tea Party were passing a “tidal wave” of ever-tightening restrictions, turning those same scenes into increasingly inaccessible fantasies.

Hollywood Does Abortion, premiering at Tribeca, aims to close that gap. Combining news footage, expert interviews and a dizzying array of film and TV clips, the documentary makes the case for the inextricable relationship between pop culture and politics, each side shaping the other. If it necessarily prioritizes breadth over depth, its sharp insights make for a galvanizing start to a long-overdue conversation.

It helps that despite the often dispiriting subject matter, Hollywood Does Abortion, directed by Janet Goldwater, Barbara Attie and Mike Attie, is a surprisingly easy watch. The pacing is brisk but never hurried, and its leaps between eras or topics never feels difficult to follow, thanks to writer-editor Jamie Boyle’s well-organized narrative flow. Statistics are trotted out judiciously to make a clear statement, rather than thrown at us willy-nilly.

The talking heads include academics and activists as well as creatives like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator Rachel Bloom and Dirty Dancing writer Eleanor Bernstein, and the film allows both their expert knowledge and their personal perspectives to shine through. (In a pointed touch, nearly all of them are women.) In one minute, they might be thoughtfully pushing back against former President Bill Clinton’s “safe, legal and rare” line, which stigmatized the choice even as it argued for the right to make it. In another, they might be laughing at their own irritated responses to a particularly irresponsible bit of storytelling.

If abortion is often regarded as a topic so complex and controversial that even the most powerful institutions and ambitious politicians are loath to go near it, Hollywood Does Abortion makes a point of presenting it as digestible and approachable.

Covering half a century’s worth of storytelling about reproductive rights — from a Maude episode that aired shortly before Roe v. Wade to Blonde, which released shortly after its overturn in 2022, and beyond — it lays out in clear and cogent detail how real-world conversations are reflected in our pop culture. Which, in turn, has the power to influence public thinking and even actual legislation around certain issues, à la the Will & Grace effect.

Like how Dirty Dancing taught the generation who came up after Roe what they stood to lose if those rights were repealed, by smuggling a back-alley abortion storyline into an irresistible teen romance. Or, on the flip side, how a particularly nasty episode of Law & Order inspired by George Tiller helped to justify his murder in retrospect, by turning the fictionalized version of him into the specter of every fervent pro-lifer’s nightmares.

And even within its limited run time, the film allows for nuance: The same Dirty Dancing clips that served as a necessary reminder of an uglier past resurface in another segment discussing how the frequent depiction of abortion as physically and emotionally traumatic helped portray it as something evil.

Hollywood Does Abortion’s biggest issue, insofar as it can even be fairly described as one, is simply the overabundance of worthy topics. The filmmakers are admirable in their ambition, touching on everything from the way male characters are depicted in these storylines (often furious at not having been allowed more say) to which types of stories remain underrepresented (basically anything that isn’t about a pretty young white woman getting a medical procedure) to Hollywood’s favorite wishy-washy plot cheats (like Cristina’s ectopic pregnancy on Grey’s Anatomy, the result of ABC refusing to let Shonda Rimes depict her going through with an abortion).

However, the doc’s wide-ranging view also means touching on things is all it has time to do. Though entire essays can and have been written about some of the individual storylines mentioned here (indeed, Slate critic Dana Stevens, who wrote one about Knocked Up’s “shmashmortion” approach, gets to reiterate some of her points here), the vast majority of referenced shows and movies appear only as out-of-context clips, and even the ones subject to more thorough discussion are allowed just a few minutes at most.

But such restraint is more a virtue than a drawback of the movie, which works precisely because it’s so judicious about recognizing what fits into its scope and what doesn’t. It’s plugged in enough to bring up, say, trad wife content on TikTok — a very modern form of pop culture — but smart enough to recognize that it’s another discussion for another day. It shows enough clips of conservative commentators spewing hateful rhetoric or prominent politicians like J.D. Vance demanding “more babies” to provoke justified fury, but leaves the hardcore history lessons for other books or docs to handle.

Very consciously, Hollywood Does Abortion positions itself as part of a larger discussion rather than its entirety. And while it can be devastatingly candid about the terror of the times we live in, it offers itself up as a call to fight rather than a concession of defeat.

In 1776 South Carolina, widower and legendary war hero Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) finds himself thrust into the midst of the American Revolutionary War as he helplessly watches his family torn apart by the savage forces of the British Redcoats. Unable to remain silent, he recruits a band of reluctant volunteers, including his idealistic patriot son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), to take up arms against the British. Fighting to protect his family’s freedom and his country’s independence, Martin discovers the pain of betrayal, the redemption of revenge and the passion of love.

For thoughts on The Patriot, please check out my thoughts on No Streaming Required: 

Video Quality

The new 4K UHD Blu-Ray SteelBook of The Patriot offers a significant improvement in quality over the older Blu-Ray released in 2007, but no Blu-Ray copies of the movie are included in this package. The film was already released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray back in 2018, which I have and used to compare to this newer release. The implementation of Dolby Vision versus the strictly HDR10 of the previous release yields some incremental improvements, but the major selling point of this release is the inclusion of the Extended Cut in 4K UHD at long last, as opposed to the HD presentation in the last set. While it was believed that the unique footage in this cut could not properly be scaled up to meet 4K UHD standards, Sony has worked its magic by providing it along with the Theatrical Cut on 4K UHD, each version with its own disc. 

These transfers invite a proper amount of film grain that resolves exceedingly well without being clumpy, splotchy, or unnatural. Even in the most challenging conditions, such as the smoky battlefield, the picture does not stumble with loose grain or banding, leaving you astounded by its complexity. Sony has not had any digital manipulation done to this transfer, so this disc is clear of DNR, compression artifacts, and other encoding shortcomings. The period production design is presented with tremendous clarity and depth. Skin tones appear more natural than the previous Blu-Ray with a world of fine detail apparent, especially as wounds compound on the battlefield. The costumes and other background textures within the environment are key to making this transfer feel so alive. Even the unique footage of the Extended Cut blends seamlessly with the theatrical footage, so you are in good shape no matter which version you watch. 

The benefits of Dolby Vision are readily apparent, as it refines the color spectrum to achieve a more pinpoint execution of the intended hue. The black levels are a beast, always staying deep and flawless with great detail. Highlights in the film are just as brilliant, with the whites pure and balanced with no signs of blooming to be found. This is helpful with characters out under the blazing sun. There is a fair share of eye-popping colors to behold, especially within the foliage and other environmental flourishes. The rich shades within the foliage are quite impressive on all fronts. The colors are complex and completely accurate to what was intended by the creative team. Sony has come through with a pair of impeccable transfers for fans, and even those who own the previous 4K UHD might want to upgrade for the extended cut. 

Audio Quality

This 4K UHD Blu-Ray ports over the previous Dolby Atmos track, which gives the film a stellar audio experience necessary for a period epic. The disc also provides the original DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that still impressive in its own right. Those who choose to utilize the original track may not engage every speaker you have, but you will be treated to an ideal experience without any obvious age-related flaws. Dialogue is nice and clear without ever getting overpowered by the music or sound effects. The score from John Williams is deeply emotional and adds so much to the experience as it flows out with peerless fidelity. 

With the Atmos track, you will find the front channels commanding most of the dialogue and other primary sounds, but subtle elements consistently expand to the surrounds, rears, and overhead speakers to make things feel more three-dimensional. The sounds up above do not steal focus unnecessarily, rather allowing the world to feel more expansive. Atmospheric sound effects are precisely rendered within the mix so that directionality is never in question. The low-end effects from the subwoofer are astounding due to the intense battle sequences. Sony has not set a foot wrong with this release. Optional English, English SDH, and a plethora of other subtitles are provided. 

Special Features

Sony has provided The Patriot with a sleek new SteelBook featuring artwork that is truly lovely in person. Video of the SteelBook can be found at the top of this review.

Disc 1 (4K UHD – Theatrical Cut)

• Audio Commentary: Director Roland Emmerich and Producer Dean Devlin

• The Art of War: A ten-minute featurette that explores how combat was waged during this time and how the creative team approached realizing it on screen. 

• The True Patriots: A ten-minute look at the process of bringing the soldiers into this feature, as well as the supposed historical accuracy at play. 

• Theatrical Trailer (2:39)

Disc 2 (4K UHD – Unrated Version)

• Deleted Scenes: A 13-minute selection of unused material is provided here with optional audio commentary from director Roland Emmerich and Producer Dean Devlin. 

• Visual Effects Featurette: A nearly ten-minute piece that shows how they pulled off some of the visual effects work in the film. 

• Conceptual Art to Film Comparisons (4:48) 

Final Thoughts

The Patriot is one of the ultimate examples of pure “dad movie” bliss. You get an epic historical story that sands down any nuances to a strict moral binary that plays well for a broad audience. If you are looking for historical accuracy, you should stay far away, as this feature has strictly different goals. This movie mostly accomplishes what director Roland Emmerich strives to do with all of his movies—to entertain a mass audience. This does not always result in the most artistically rewarding endeavors, but they can be satisfying. Even with a runtime nearing three hours, the film moves along at a great pace, and the ensemble delivers in all the ways it needs to. It’s American history through a shiny Hollywood lens, but that is what you want sometimes when you rather rest your brain for a few hours. Sony Pictures has released a sterling new Limited Edition 4K UHD Blu-Ray SteelBook featuring a top-notch A/V presentation as well as a welcome assortment of special features. For the Extended Cut in 4K UHD alone, this is worth an upgrade for fans. Recommended 

The Patriot is currently available to purchase on 4K UHD Blu-Ray SteelBook and Digital. 

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the 4K UHD Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.