Disclosure Day (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
3 hours ago
4 min read

DISCLOSURE DAY (2025)

Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Elizabeth Marvel, Hettienne Park, Tommy Martinez, Gabby Beans, Jeremy Shamos, Revon Yousif, Elliot Villar, Noah Robbins, Michael Gaston, Delaney Cuthbert, Tyler Renaud, Lance Archer, Brian Cage, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Patricia Conolly.

Screenplay by David Koepp.

Directed by Steven Spielberg.

Distributed by Universal Pictures. 145 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Nearly six decades into his career as one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation, Steven Spielberg has very little left to prove.

Yet, it takes a certain amount of bravery to return to the subject of alien visitations, which fueled two of his most-beloved early classic films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and ET – The Extraterrestrial (1982). He also visited a somewhat similar galaxy in his 2005 adaptation of HG Well’s War of the Worlds. Disclosure Day will inevitably be compared to CE3K and ET. (War of the Worlds was fundamentally different enough in tone, and has been largely forgotten at this point, so it probably won't factor much into the comparison.)

So let’s get the inevitable out of the way right up front: Disclosure Day is not as good as its two predecessors. However, those films are both classics, so that isn’t the world’s most damning criticism. For the record, Disclosure Day has much more in common with Close Encounters than ET, although it has some similar attributes to that as well.

However, as Spielberg himself explains in the film’s trailer, “I am much more inclined now than I was when I made Close Encounters to believe that we’re not the only intelligent civilization in the universe… I used to say to myself wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of this turned out to be true? I’m now thinking, wouldn’t it be wonderful for people to know all of this is true?

In that explanation, you get the seed of the difference – in plot and perspective – between Disclosure Day and its predecessors. This film is not so much about encountering aliens – in the film’s world that has already happened multiple times – it is about destroying the coverups which deny alien visitation.

Tightly written by David Koepp, and based on an original story idea by Spielberg, Disclosure Day tries to bring to light the fact – to paraphrase another pop culture phenomenon about creatures from space visiting Earth – that “the truth is out there.”

The film pretty much runs on three concurrent lines before all the story threads dovetail together for the climax. It opens up with a heist, in which computer analyst Daniel Kellner (Josh O’ Connor) steals a mysterious and powerful alien artifact, which he and his unwitting girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) have to try to get to a rebellious group of scientists who want to use it to prove that aliens have been captured and tortured and experimented upon.

Trying to stop them, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of the evil corporate monolith Wardex Corporation, believes that the existence of aliens is a profitable corporate secret. He uses a mini army of toughs in an attempt to track down the couple on the run and the rogue scientists.

At first – seemingly from another story – is a local weatherwoman named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) who suddenly gains strange powers – fluency in languages she has never spoken before, the ability to have full access to people’s inner thoughts and the empathy to help them with their problems. She comes to realize that she has some sort of connection with Kellner – although to her knowledge she has never met him – and goes on the road to save him from Wardex. She drags along her boyfriend, who thinks she has gone crazy.

What follows is a series of chases, action sequences and mysterious coincidences and experiences which lead to the inevitable showdown between good and evil. It’s a fun and intriguing storyline which feels like a companion piece with the earlier films, even if it doesn’t quite live up to them. By the end, we see how the characters of Disclosure Day are spiritual cousins to Close Encounters’ Roy Neary. They just want to know that it's really happening.

The funny thing is in a broader sense; the film is celebrating Spielberg’s entire body of work. My personal favorite little Easter egg was a scene in which the heroes are in a car, stopped at a railroad crossing as a train thunders by, when suddenly from behind an SUV starts pushing them into the path of the train. This is a near repeat of a classic scene in Duel – the 1971 TV movie which was Spielberg’s film debut as a director, although done with a much bigger budget and ramping the situation further into dangerous ground.

There is also another scene in which Blunt’s character escapes a dangerous situation because she appears to somehow be seen as different, beloved people in the lives of the bad guys who would want to stop her. As one of my fellow critics said after the film, “that may be the most Spielberg scene ever.”

With a cast this large and talented, there is of course a lot of credit to go around. Blunt subtly captures Margaret’s confusion and fear with a clear-eyed portrayal. O’Connor adds a world-weary inevitability to his part. Firth gives his villainous character a certain amount of empathy and soul. Hewson and Domingo’s open performances become the conscientious heart of the story.

Not Close Encounters, not ET, but a worthy addition to the conversation those films started, Disclosure Day has many spectacular innovations to share all on its own. It does exactly what its title promises – it brings things into the light. That Spielberg can still do that, after all this time and all these films, is its own kind of revelation.

Jay S. Jacobs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icDuEHSxE-w