{"id":1199,"date":"2026-06-09T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/disclosure-day-review-spielberg-awe-elevates-clunky-sci-fi-thriller\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:00:00","slug":"disclosure-day-review-spielberg-awe-elevates-clunky-sci-fi-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/disclosure-day-review-spielberg-awe-elevates-clunky-sci-fi-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"Disclosure Day review: Spielberg awe elevates clunky sci-fi thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div data-placement=\"Body\">\n<div class=\"rating\" data-testid=\"rating\">\n<div class=\"rating__values rating__values--no-rate\" aria-label=\"rating\"><span class=\"sr-only\">A star rating of 3 out of 5.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Anyone who knows the slightest thing about cinema knows that the subject of extra-terrestrial life is something that has preoccupied Steven Spielberg for just about the entirety of his storied career. <\/p>\n<p>With Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial five years later, the legendary filmmaker crafted arguably the two most seminal works about alien beings visiting Earth \u2013 a pair of stories rich with his trademark sense of wide-eyed wonder that redefined pop culture iconography forever (and which remain every bit as compelling and emotionally rewarding to this day.)<\/p>\n<p>He dipped his toes back into similar (albeit also rather different) waters in 2005 with his take on HG Wells\u2019s classic sci-fi tale The War of the Worlds, and now \u2013 another two decades on \u2013 he\u2019s gone back to the well one more time. Disclosure Day marks a welcome return to summer blockbuster fare for the master of that particular art, and finds him once again asking cinemagoers how we might react if presented with incontrovertible proof of intelligent life beyond our solar system. <\/p>\n<p>We should make it plain from the outset that this new film is not at the same level as those aforementioned 20th century classics. Where his masterful earlier works had a razor sharp focus, the script here \u2013 penned by regular collaborator David Koepp \u2013 has a clunky and unfocused quality that occasionally makes it difficult to truly fall under the film&#8217;s spell. <\/p>\n<div class=\"consent-placeholder consent-placeholder--custom-consent mb-md\" data-testid=\"consent-placeholder\">\n<h4 class=\"consent-placeholder__heading section-heading-1 heading-4\">Want to see this content?<\/h4>\n<p class=\"consent-placeholder__text mb-0 mt-0\">This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose &#8216;Accept and continue&#8217; to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes.<\/p>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"consent-placeholder__button button--adaptive mt-sm\"><\/p>\n<p>Accept and continue<\/p>\n<p><\/button><\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, in ways both good and bad, Disclosure Day feels a little old school and out of time, a relic of a previous Hollywood age that doesn\u2019t have an especially current grasp of modern life and attitudes (and more specifically of the dwindling cultural significance of live television news.) <\/p>\n<p>Our protagonists are Emily Blunt&#8217;s chirpy and ambitious TV weather presenter Margaret Fairchild and Josh O&#8217;Connor&#8217;s stoic whistleblower Daniel Kellner, two people with seemingly very different lives and personalities who \u2013 for reasons viewers are best left to discover on their own \u2013 are destined to be brought together in the race to finally inform the world that aliens have visited our planet.<\/p>\n<p>We first meet the latter in a scene that plunges the audience immediately into the action. He is being ruthlessly pursued by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head honcho of the shadowy organisation where he is employed, known as The Wardex Corporation. They have discovered he plans to leak deeply confidential files that prove a major government cover-up regarding UFOs and alien life dating back some 80 years, and their desperate attempts to stop him at any cost occasionally give the film the feel of a 70s-era paranoid thriller. <\/p>\n<p>Our introduction to Margaret, on the other hand, is rather more otherworldly. As she is preparing for work one morning, she is paid a visit by an intriguing red cardinal bird, and in the aftermath of their brief interaction, almost instantly begins behaving very curiously. She makes bizarre clicking sounds, is gifted with the uncanny ability to read people\u2019s minds and speak their languages, and is driven by an unstoppable urge to get to the bottom of her mysterious fate.<\/p>\n<p>Before and after the pair are brought together, there are some exceptional sequences and moments that highlight why for so long Spielberg has been considered the unimpeachable king of entertaining big-budget filmmaking. The director still knows how to block and film action spectacle better than just about anyone, and one particular set piece involving a moving train is genuinely thrilling stuff \u2013 a nail-biting scene that ranks among the year\u2019s very best. <\/p>\n<p>The performances, too, are first rate. O\u2019Connor once again proves he has all it takes to be a modern day movie star, while Eve Hewson is terrific as his character\u2019s religiously conflicted ex-nun girlfriend, who also gets caught up in the chase. But top marks go to Blunt, who has the most challenging physical and emotional role and turns in arguably the finest performance of her career. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, Spielberg is still capable of producing the classic moments of magical awe that have always defined his films, helped here by another reliably stirring score by his oldest collaborator, composer John Williams. But while there is an impressive sense of mystery for much of the film, the way the narrative unfolds doesn\u2019t always feel as satisfying or <em>exciting<\/em> as it could. <\/p>\n<p>Spielberg and Koepp have attempted to pack a lot in here \u2013 with themes ranging from the lasting power of buried childhood memories to the importance of the pursuit of truth to the possibility of reconciling belief in alien life with religious faith \u2013 and the result can sometimes feel like a film that gestures at profundity without ever quite delivering it.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, although the earnestness of its closing section has a certain charm \u2013 and will no doubt have a deeply emotional effect on many of those with a longstanding admiration for Spielberg\u2019s work \u2013 it also perhaps veers from his characteristic sentimentality into outright cheesiness in a way that his best work always managed to avoid. And without straying into spoilers, the film ends just as it&#8217;s getting to it&#8217;s most interesting part, with some viewers bound to be frustrated that we don&#8217;t get to see what happens next. <\/p>\n<p>Disclosure Day is an imperfect film, then, but it is also one with no shortage of great moments and the undeniable stamp of the great Steven Spielberg. And if that doesn\u2019t make a summer blockbuster worth checking out, then frankly what does? <\/p>\n<p><strong>Disclosure Day is released in cinemas on Wednesday 10 June 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Check out more of our <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/movies\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/movies\/\" data-outlook-id=\"e7176688-5d3b-4713-b7a2-d109f40b41f5\">Film<\/a> coverage or visit our <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/tv-listings\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/tv\/tv-listings\/\" data-outlook-id=\"e2b43caf-7307-44c7-afdb-1d1aa66901b6\">TV Guide<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/streaming-guide\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/streaming-guide\/\" data-outlook-id=\"60b6bcbd-755b-4ebc-a78e-e3b73b823ee8\">Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what&#8217;s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/audio\/podcasts\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/audio\/podcasts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-outlook-id=\"8b03aa26-4d3a-4bc4-ac1c-db37b9ab3ac9\">The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/movies\/scifi\/steven-spielberg-disclosure-day-review\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A star rating of 3 out of 5. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about cinema knows that the subject of extra-terrestrial life is something that has preoccupied Steven Spielberg for just about the entirety of his storied career. With Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial five years later, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2026\/06\/Disclosure-Day-1-fae7f9b.jpg?resize=1200%2C630","fifu_image_alt":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2482,2484,566,998,2483,95,1417,2481,472],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-awe","tag-clunky","tag-day","tag-disclosure","tag-elevates","tag-review","tag-scifi","tag-spielberg","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}