Spielberg’s Disclosure Day praised for pace but faulted for familiar ideas

Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has reached theaters with a familiar alien-contact premise and a strong action-thriller engine, according to Ars Technica critic Jennifer Ouellette. Her review finds the film polished and entertaining, while arguing that its ideas and final payoff do not add much to Spielberg’s earlier work in the genre.

Ouellette describes the film as Spielberg’s return to stories about extraterrestrials hidden within ordinary life. She says the movie is fast-moving and carried by Emily Blunt’s performance, even as it revisits ground already covered by Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and other alien films.

A conspiracy story turns cosmic

According to Ouellette, the first stretch of Disclosure Day plays as a political thriller. The plot centers partly on Daniel, played by Josh O’Connor, a cybersecurity specialist who steals alien technology and secret files from Wardex Corporation, which the review describes as a covert arm of the U.S. government.

Ouellette writes that Wardex is led by Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth, who tries to force Daniel into the open by taking Daniel’s girlfriend Jane, played by Eve Hewson, hostage. Daniel escapes with Jane after a handoff goes wrong, and Scanlon brands him a traitor, according to the review.

The film’s second major thread follows Margaret, a Kansas City television meteorologist played by Blunt, Ouellette says. After a cardinal crashes through a window and locks eyes with her, Margaret begins speaking Russian despite never learning the language, then discovers she can understand people’s thoughts and communicate in other languages.

Ouellette says the event that pushes Margaret into public view comes during a live weather report, when she speaks in an alien language on air. The moment spreads online inside the story and draws attention from Scanlon and from Wardex colleague Hugo Wakefield, played by Colman Domingo.

In Ouellette’s account, Hugo has helped set Daniel’s theft in motion because he wants the files made public. Those files document decades of contact between humans and aliens, while Scanlon wants to keep them hidden, setting Daniel and Margaret on a collision course with Wardex.

Blunt anchors a long film

Ouellette singles out Blunt as the film’s strongest asset, saying her work gives Margaret emotional weight as the character discovers new abilities and reconnects with buried childhood memories. The review also notes that Blunt used her vocal training to perform the alien speech sounds in one four-minute take rather than relying on AI-based post-production.

At nearly two and a half hours, the movie does not feel bloated because of Spielberg’s pacing, Ouellette writes. She says the film works best when it stays in thriller mode, though she flags some plot problems and calls the concluding revelation underwhelming.

The review says the final act shifts toward a more mystical tone as the storylines meet. Ouellette says some viewers have criticized the computer-generated animals, but she argues their otherworldly look fits what they come to mean in the film.

Ouellette frames Disclosure Day as a carefully made crowd-pleaser rather than a major new statement from Spielberg. She cites Spielberg’s stated interest in a 2017 New York Times feature on the Pentagon’s UFO program, but concludes that the director’s latest alien film does not surpass his earlier landmarks.

Disclosure Day is now playing in theaters, according to Ars Technica.

This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.