By Alain Loubeau
The medium of film I believe is around 125 years old at this point. It has a lot of luminaries. Steven Spielberg being one of them. You could make the argument that he is probably the single most famous film director of all time.
If you were born between the years of 1965-1980 you are a Gen X’er, and since 1975, the year of JAWS, this man was a constant presence in your life. You could not wait to what he had to offer you at a movie theater. If his name was attached to anything either as a director or producer, you didn’t think twice but to go see one of his movies on the biggest screen you could find. He was the cinematic equivalent of Santa Claus.
The 21st century hasn’t been kind to the magician. There’s been a couple of standouts here and there…
· AI
· Minority Report
· Munich
· Lincoln
They’ve offered some thrills, but nothing compared to his output during his heyday. It’s now 2026 and he has returned to the genre that made him a household name. DISCLOSURE DAY, written by David Koepp with a story by the man himself, opened this week (June 12, 2026).
The film follows Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a cyber security expert who uncovers evidence of a long-suppressed secret about alien life, and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a meteorologist whose unusual experiences draw her into the mystery.
As governments, corporations, and religious institutions struggle to respond, the pair races to expose the truth while facing forces determined to keep it hidden.
Rather than focusing only on alien encounters, the movie explores larger questions like:
How would humanity react if extraterrestrial intelligence were proven real?
Could governments be trusted after decades of secrecy?
What would such a revelation mean for religion, belief, and human identity?
Can people unite in the face of a reality that changes everything?
Pretty weighty and pertinent questions. Heavy thematic elements that only the power of cinema can exploit to the hilt, except ironically…
THE MOVIE DOESN’T BOTHER ANSWERING ANY OF THEM!
When I bought a ticket I was expecting a science fiction drama that would hopefully levitate me off my seat and send me soaring into cinematic nirvana that only a true master like Spielberg can conjure. Boy was I wrong. This is not a sci-fi movie at all. It has the trappings of one, but at its heart it really is a magical fairy tale that would be more suited on the LifeTime channel Christmas movie lineups of disposable time sucks.
Granted, the man can direct the hell out of a movie. He is second to none when it comes to staging action and juicing dramatic moments for all their worth. And there are moments here where he achieves that. Where he fails in spectacular fashion is something called a SCREENPLAY, where movies are supposed to be birthed from.
My God, where to begin?!
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Let’s start off with the questions the movie poses…
How would humanity react if extraterrestrial intelligence were proven real?
You would think Spielberg would dramatize this thread in a movie ostensibly titled Disclosure Day, except shockingly that’s not the case at all. The closest we get to humanity reeling from the truth are a bunch of shots of people holding their phones close to their noses catatonically gazing at the footage. Not once do you get a sense of the fallout that would occur if such info were released to the public. Again this is a screenplay problem that should have never been one in the first place.
· Could governments be trusted after decades of secrecy?
Uhm…NO! Again what’s new here? Spielberg shows us a clandestine agency of men and women in black with matching gear and black Dodge Chargers chasing after our heroes in a desperate quest to squash the truth from getting out. Nothing is shown that we have not seen before. Nothing!
What would such a revelation mean for religion, belief, and human identity?
If I’m not mistaken, Christianity is not the only religion that occupies the earth. But the movie sure believes that it is as there are no mention of Islam – Judaism – Buddhism! C’mon man, this is just lazy hackery. You’d think Spielberg could give us a montage of different religious figures debating the meaning of our existence in light of alien life…NOPE!
Can people unite in the face of a reality that changes everything?
This is where the film ultimately fails because again…IT DOESN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION. Everything we’ve seen before leads us to the climax of our heroes finally revealing the truth to the world and it just ends on a one word syllable. Structurally the film would have been far more interesting and original if the climax is the first act and the second and third act explores the question if in fact can humanity unite amidst this interplanetary revelation. That would make a great movie and a far more interesting one considering the world we are living in today. But we just don’t get it here for a 115 million production. All of its ideas are expressed between two characters played by the great Academy Award Nominated Actor COLMAN DOMINGO and Academy Award winner COLIN FIRTH in a scene where both man argue for the case for withholding or disclosing the truth, just one scene of two men arguing their thematic points of view through basic generic dialogue. It boggles my mind.
Anytime I start to think of ways a movie could have been better while I’m watching it has outright failed. Not once did I play arm-chair screenwriter while watching PROJECT HAIL MARY, a two and half hour sci-fi epic that had me on the edge of my seat and did better classic Spielberg than the man himself. I will never forget PHM for as long as I live. Disclosure Day…it’s already become a distant memory. From STEVEN FRIGGIN SPIELBERG NO LESS!
Let me say that the man is not immune to laying a wet fart of a movie from time to time. If you’re that brilliant, you’ll eventually lay an egg, it’s just the law of averages at work.
· 1941
· Twilight Zone movie segment(even as a 7 year old I thought that sucked)
· Always
· The Lost World
· Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
· War Horse
· The Terminal
All bad in my opinion. But I would watch every single one of those movies before this one. To say that this was a bad film is an understatement. I think this one has to be his worst effort because the potential to do something truly unique within the genre was within grasp and he just squanders it with the aid of a really shitty screenplay that’s afraid to take chances and explore new avenues within a genre that begs on hands and knees for constant reinvention.
I hate to be that guy, but the man should never go near blockbuster inspired material ever again. Stick to the human dramas, that seems to be a space where he’s comfortable. He’s not that magician anymore, and that’s okay. People change, I get it. I feel like he made this movie as a response to the box office disappointments of his last two – WEST SIDE STORY and THE FABLEMANS – to say to the world “I still got it, huh.”
Sorry Steve…you lost this one.
Author Bio:
Alain was an 80's kid who grew up in the movie theater and watched everything from E.T. to Robocop. No genre was off limits. His writing has earned a list of accolades for his various screenplays. See Alain’s other articles HERE.
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