Disclosure Day (in theaters)

Steven Spielberg still knows how to keep an audience’s attention. 

His latest movie, “Disclosure Day,” is an incredibly well-made film that holds the eyes from the first moments almost to the final ones. It drops you right into the action and keeps its foot on the gas, folding in just enough information and quiet character moments that we never get lost or forget who these people are. There’s a beautiful balance of exciting, sweet and genuinely frightening moments, all handled by a uniformly excellent cast. It’s the kind of movie that restores your faith in the old-school power of filmmaking, which is a lesson Hollywood badly needs. 

There’s just one problem with “Disclosure Day,” but it’s a niggling one. Alien movies have taken all kinds of approaches to the aliens’ motivations and how humans will respond, and in most of them it’s at least seemed possible. “Disclosure Day,” however, blends aliens with religion and a strong mythic bent that feels not so much naive as wildly out of touch with how people actually work. If nothing else, it assumes that everyone on the planet will respond exactly the same way, which has already been disproven by pretty much everything everywhere. 

That disconnect, and the fact that the movie is pretty much built on it, is an itch that doesn’t go away. No matter how masterfully Spielberg puts on the show, there’s a voice in the back of your head going “but that isn’t how any of this would work!” It keeps you from getting sucked in the way you’re supposed to, and in the final moments even starts getting in the way of a fully realized ending. 

The movie’s beliefs start mattering more than the story, but it’s the story that’s worth being there for. 

Grade: Three stars

Office Romance (Netflix)

I don’t know if the 2000s romance formula needed to get naughtier, but it definitely needed Brett Goldstein.

“Office Romance,” the latest Jennifer Lopez rom-com, follows many of the old-school tropes in a pretty faithful way. It’s one shake-up is a much higher degree of naughtiness than the 2000s movies, including visible erections, office sex, close-up delivery shots and regular use of the c-word (much more commonly used in England.) It definitely adds a different flavor to the experience, but if it doesn’t put you off the results are satisfying in their own way. 

A big reason for that is Goldstein, who plays the company lawyer who falls in love with Lopez’s airline CEO. Though he’s as gruff as his “Ted Lasso” character, he’s charismatic enough to make the screen sparkle. He’s also got great chemistry with Lopez, who is just as elegant and glowing as ever. If this isn’t the start of a long and productive rom-com career for this man, I will be bitterly disappointed. 

Betty Gilpin also shines in the movie, delivering an absolutely hilarious turn as Lopez’s work-obsessed assistant. It’s a different sort of magic than Goldstein’s, but just as needed. 

Grade: Two and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at [email protected].