"Disclosure Day"

☆☆

This is painful to see. Disclosure Day should be top-notch Steven Spielberg. This is, after all, the filmmaker who created Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. This is the filmmaker who generated such a sense of awe in those films, not just for creatures from outer space, but for how human beings can't help but wonder if we are alone in the universe, and what would happen if we found out we weren't.

Then again, Spielberg is also the filmmaker responsible for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, an embarrassing attempt to graft an alien story on to an Indiana Jones movie; and War of the Worlds, which has an extraordinary first forty-five minutes and then just gets worse and worse and worse.

Both Crystal Skull and War of the Worlds were written (or co-written) by David Koepp, who is often cited as the highest-grossing screenwriter in movie history. In Hollywood, money, not quality, is the most important metric, and so Koepp has re-teamed with Spielberg for another alien movie. The result is not good, which is a stunning shame to see.

Disclosure Day is, ostensibly, about what would happen if all the evidence the government has been (allegedly, at least) hiding about contact with extra-terrestrial visitors were made public. Unfortunately for Disclosure Day, that really has been happening, at least to some degree, and mostly has been greeted with a big collective shrug. Most of the "evidence" doesn't seem very convincing.

But Disclosure Day imagines it would be. That the revelation of alien contact could be enough to stop global wars and create an instant sense of responsibility. That idea has been explored before, back in James Cameron's 1989 The Abyss. (The alien subplot was mostly dropped for the theatrical release, but restored later.)

To get there, Disclosure Day puts some of its characters in a cross-country car chase, with lots of car wrecks and exciting moments where the heroes try to outrun the law on rural backroads. Kind of like Spielberg's first major film, The Sugarland Express.

During Disclosure Day, we're told that some small children (for spoiler purposes, I won't reveal who) previously met and interacted with aliens in an experience that changed them forever. Kind of like Spielberg's E.T.

The movie also follows a seeming "every-man" named Daniel, played by Josh O'Connor, who becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about the aliens. He meets a woman, named Margaret, played by Emily Blunt, who is overcome after a mysterious, inexplicable incident, and feels compelled to travel to the place Daniel thinks will reveal the truth. And that's a lot like Close Encounters.

Over and over and over, Disclosure Day seems like a slice-and-dice of earlier, better movies. Koepp's screenplay stitches these together with another story about the evil (quasi-)government official who is covering up the truth. He's played by Colin Firth. There's another escapee from the (quasi-)government agency where Firth works. He's a good guy, named Hugo, played by Colman Domingo. Exactly what he's doing is unclear, even once the movie shows us what he's doing.

Why is Hugo building the thing he's building? To what end? How does he know that Margaret is the key to everything when she's not even aware of it until the day before the movie's action begins? What is the connection between Margaret and Daniel? Why is an international conflict brewing throughout the movie (except to make a point)? What is this device that is the film's "MacGuffin"? Why does it seem to have powers that are exactly what the script needs to keep going, and no more, and seem endlessly flexible? Why is so much made of Catholic and Christian faith throughout a movie made by the director of Schindler's List? And by the time we get to the unimpressive climax, where exactly has that certain thing been, and why is it brought out just now? (You'll know it when you see it ... boy, will you.)

It's charitable to call the screenplay for Disclosure Day an absolute mess, and though the story is credited to Spielberg, it's genuinely hard to imagine a filmmaker of his caliber reading this screenplay and believing it to be ready to film. It needs at least a few more revisions.

Even more shocking is that at key moments throughout Disclosure Day, computer-generated critters of both the terrestrial and extra-terrestrial variety, look comically bad. While there are some genuinely impressive visual effects in the movie — particularly an exciting moment on a fast-moving train — key encounters with animals and aliens look awful. Some fifty years after Close Encounters, it would be nice to see aliens presented with just a bit more imagination.

Despite all its shortcomings, the performers are all strong. Blunt is particularly good. It really is among her finest work, though sadly it's in service of such an ill-conceived idea. When Disclosure Day finally grinds to a halt, it's an abrupt one — it's Blunt who has to deliver a final line that no doubt is meant to seem provocative but feels more like everyone just ran out of ideas. Blunt, indeed.

Viewed June 14, 2026 — AMC Universal

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