Spielberg's new film opens Wednesday

Another alien story from the master of sci-fi

The Roswell incident, crop circles and the truth behind the conspiracies

A clash of competing beliefs about humanity and the truth

A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]

This review contains some spoilers for "Disclosure Day."

The master of science fiction shows no sign of slowing down. "Disclosure Day," Steven Spielberg's latest film, brims with the determination and energy of an 80-year-old filmmaker who has never lost his curiosity about what lies beyond our world. From "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) and "E.T." (1982) to "War of the Worlds" (2005), Spielberg's alien stories have evolved. This new chapter, framed around humanity's confrontation with an extraterrestrial civilization, escapes the trap of repetition through a genuinely fresh variation on the theme.

When every conspiracy theory about alien civilization turns out to be true, how does humanity respond? The journey toward Disclosure Day feels less like a sense-of-wonder adventure and more like a moral and philosophical question that lingers long after the credits roll.

With the specter of a third world war looming — triggered by North Korea's nuclear provocations — Kansas City weather forecaster Margaret (Emily Blunt) has a strange encounter with a cardinal that flies through her window and suddenly finds herself with abilities she cannot explain. She begins speaking Russian and Korean without knowing how, and reads the minds of a traffic officer and a TV producer she meets on her morning commute. Then, mid-forecast, she emits an unintelligible clicking sound on camera and collapses on the studio floor.

A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]

Meanwhile, Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) is on the run from Wordex, his former employer and a company built on secrecy. Having uncovered the truth about extraterrestrials while working there, Daniel flees with his girlfriend Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson), carrying decades' worth of records and devices. Pursuing him is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of Wordex, who holds the opposite conviction: where Daniel believes the truth belongs to all of humanity, Noah believes humanity cannot bear it. Noah remotely infiltrates Jane's consciousness through one of the devices, relentlessly tracking the couple's whereabouts.

After footage of Margaret making the strange sounds goes public, she too becomes a fugitive. She instinctively senses Daniel's existence and makes her way to him. The two eventually recognize each other and join hands, then walk out into the world together — carrying a truth humanity has suppressed for decades.

The film weaves in the alien conspiracy theories that have persisted to this day — the Roswell incident, crop circles, UFO sightings — all staples of popular culture for decades. Spielberg does not treat them as mere curiosities. Instead, he uses them as the source of the fear and awe that arise when human beings encounter something beyond their comprehension. His skill in threading these scattered fragments of suspicion into a single coherent narrative is precisely why he is still called a master.

The film frames the conflict between those who want to reveal the truth and those who want to bury it not as a simple battle between good and evil, but as a collision of fundamentally different beliefs about human society. The audience learns the truth relatively early, and the question — should this truth be made public? — never lets go. How will a world on the brink of war reckon with the ugly reality that humanity has abused and tortured non-human beings and stolen their technology? Is truth still something like water, air and sunlight that everyone deserves (Daniel's view)? Or does it function like a virus that destroys anyone without immunity (Noah's)?

A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]

What stands out is the optimism running through the entire film. Even amid profound division, Spielberg does not lose faith in humanity — a stance consistent with his long-held approach of meeting the unknown through a sense of wonder. When humanity witnesses aliens reduced to experimental subjects, the seemingly unstoppable chaos comes to a halt. A news anchor cannot hide his outrage at the unbelievable truth. In the shock and silence, humanity redefines its place in the universe. The film's final act feels less like the catastrophic breakdown Noah predicted and more like a hard-won maturity in accepting the truth.

Spielberg does not let the film rest as a meditation on truth and disclosure alone. "Disclosure Day" weaves religion and childhood trauma — two other realms of belief — into the narrative through its individual characters. That ambition comes at a cost: some storylines remain unresolved or awkwardly handled by the end, which is a genuine disappointment. The aliens and Margaret are portrayed as transcendent beings beyond advanced technology, and some viewers may read the film not as science fiction but as a kind of religious narrative.

Strictly speaking, the film is less about Disclosure Day itself than a road movie building toward it. The first two acts are largely a cycle of pursuit and flight, with black vans descending on wherever the protagonists are hiding. The film delivers more than enough car-chase action as a result. The cinematography, camera angles and direction are all impeccable. If the film still feels slow at times, that is simply the nature of the beast.

A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]
A scene from "Disclosure Day" [Universal Pictures]

A film that offers almost no explanations can feel deliberately withholding — and this one does not even satisfy the audience's faith that answers will eventually come. The ending, too, may leave viewers somewhat bewildered. Yet if those open spaces are precisely what humanity itself must fill in, the ambiguity becomes acceptable. The film's final scene makes it unmistakably clear that Spielberg wants to hand the audience not an answer but a question. The more unexplained the gaps, the more Emily Blunt's performance fills them with quiet conviction — and that needs neither explanation nor answer. Rated for ages 12 and older.


balme@heraldcorp.com