If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?

It seems like the latest alien adjacent film from director Steven Spielberg (also co-writing here) is a polarizing effort that has many viewers either loving or hating it, but I’m here to admit I landed firmly in the middle. There’s a lot to enjoy: some appealing performances, some great sequences, and thought-provoking discussion on the right thing to do with information. There are also some mind-numbingly stupid scenes and moments, a 10-year-old approach to sci-fi (which I could forgive if the movie was targeted to a younger audience, but the dialogue suggests otherwise), and really clunky dialogue as heavy as an anvil.

Emily Blunt is Margaret Fairchild, a basic weathergirl in Kansas City who wants to move to the anchor desk. Josh O’Connor is a data nerd sitting on a trove of information while being hunted by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), his former billionaire boss who technically owns and protects said information. The information (obviously) centers around the existence of alien life, the details of it – how long it’s been around, the extent of it, etc., we learn as the film goes on.

The film drops the audience smack dab in the center of the action, with Noah in a showdown with Scanlon’s goons to get back his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson). Elsewhere, Margaret is speaking in different languages and sharing people’s thoughts, a power she seemingly just developed. Margaret and Kellner (O’Connor) are drawn together and supported from afar by Hugo (Colman Domingo) and it’s their attempts to connect, and lose Scanlon’s team, that drives the movies plot.

Look, the movie rests mostly on vibes. It has the sheen of big government conspiracies, big moneymen pulling the strings, and the common guys getting caught in between, even if it doesn’t delve too deeply into its own concepts. But Spielberg is great at creating vibes. I was compelled along even when scenes hinged on military trained professionals being incapable of turning their head. You could get whiplash from how much the movie shifts from cool scene to eye-rolling moment, but for two-and-a-half hours it commanded my attention.

I thought Blunt and O’Connor both handled themselves well with Blunt’s confusion and O’Connor’s sensitivity informing a lot of their actions. My favorite performance was actually from relative unknown Courtney Grace, former reporter playing a reporter, who has a crucial role in the film’s climax. I get why people love this movie, and I really get why people hate it, but for me I appreciated it for what it was even if it failed at what it tried to be.

Jonathan’s grade – C