Steven Spielberg has spent much of his career asking us to look up at the sky in wonder. From Close Encounters of the Third Kind to E.T. and even the darker War of the Worlds, his best alien stories have balanced spectacle with genuine human emotion.
His latest film, Disclosure Day, is clearly trying to join that club. Not surprisingly, given its pedigree, it’s an entertaining, ambitious ride. That said, it never quite reaches the heights of Spielberg’s other extraterrestrial adventures.
The film centers on two seemingly unrelated figures. First, we meet cybersecurity analyst-turned-whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor, from Challengers and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery), who uncovers evidence of a decades-long conspiracy involving alien contact, and who is racing to expose it before Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) and his powerful Wardex Corporation can stop him.
Meanwhile, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, already on the big screen this summer in The Devil Wears Prada 2), a Kansas City meteorologist, begins experiencing strange psychic phenomena that may be connected to an extraterrestrial presence.
Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) also stars as Hugo Wakefield, another former Wardex insider, who defects and becomes one of the leading advocates for revealing to the world the truth about alien contact that’s been hidden for almost 80 years.
As Daniel and Margaret’s stories converge, the world inches toward the titular “Disclosure Day” — the moment humanity will learn, once and for all, that we are not alone. But will anyone believe it?
The result is a huge, typically self-important Spielberg swing. It’s part alien movie, part conspiracy thriller, and part rallying cry for the innate optimism of humanity (with a similar message as in Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, a better movie overall). Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp throw a lot into the mix: government secrecy, corporate corruption, telepathy, philosophical questions about truth, cute animals, and enough chase scenes to fuel an entire summer blockbuster season.
Sometimes, it works beautifully. Sometimes, the film asks you to just go with it on faith — literally and figuratively. But eventually it just gets to be a bit … out there.
What keeps the whole thing airborne are the performances. Blunt brings warmth and conviction to a character who could have been reduced to pure Spielbergian symbolism. O’Connor is excellent as the increasingly desperate truth-teller at the center of the conspiracy. And Domingo once again demonstrates that he can make virtually any role more interesting simply by showing up.
Visually, the movie is often stunning, with Janusz Kamiński capturing images and Spielberg directing scenes with the confidence of a filmmaker who has nothing left to prove. Yet the emotional payoff never quite lands with the force the film clearly believes it’s earned. The final act reaches for awe, hope, and transcendence, but it arrives somewhere closer to murky admiration than genuine wonder.
At one point, Hugo offers up the film’s main thesis statement: that the hardest thing isn’t believing; it’s being believed. I wish I could say I fully believed in Disclosure Day. It’s a good movie. Sometimes, it’s very good. But for a film about creatures from outer space, it is, ultimately, earthbound.
I’m giving Disclosure Day a B.
Martin's Musings 
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