Disclosure Day (2026) Review
Steven Spielberg is back in theaters this weekend with Disclosure Day, and it is Spielberg returning to a familiar genre, sci-fi. To say the obvious, Disclosure Day was one of my most anticipated movies of 2026. I love Steven Spielberg and I love sci-fi so it seemed like a movie that I would really enjoy. Now having seen the film, how was it? Let’s talk about it!
The Good
And I’ll just cut right to the chase, to the surprise of only Steven Spielberg has done it again. We’re about halfway through the year and it’s one of my favorite movies of the year. The thing that I love about the film is that it wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. The movie’s trailers and marketing I think were a bit misleading where they highlighted some of the more exciting scenes in the film. Whether that’s a car chase or a train sequence, that puts certain expectations about the film in our head. The movie itself is not an action movie whatsoever and it’s not a fun Steven Spielberg blockbuster in the way that Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park are big, exciting blockbusters. Because the film was quite different from what I expected, I constantly found myself thinking “I don’t know where this is going”. You compare this with comments made by Steven Spielberg who said no images from the third act have been shown in the trailers. It’s not entirely true, there are shots in the trailer that are from the third act. But the shots that are shown don't at all give you any sense as to where the movie is going or what the third act is. It was just a cool viewing experience to watch a movie where the marketing presents the film as one thing but then totally goes in other directions that the audience isn’t expecting.
I’ve seen some reviews mention the third act of the film as the weak point of the film. It’s a very different third act from what I was expecting and from what most people were expecting. I thought that the third act was going to be big and exciting since none of the third act is shown in the trailers. As I started to piece together what the third act was going to be, it made me realize and reassure me that Spielberg is smarter than me and knows how to end the movie properly. The fact that the third act is quieter and more personal perfectly fits the film itself. That’s when you have a third act that works, when it feels like it ends perfectly. The film isn’t necessarily about the alien invasion; there’s very few shots of the aliens in the film. So, the film is about humanity and finding yourself and uncovering the truth and that’s what the third act is all about. When you get to the third act and all of this stuff goes down, you feel the emotion and the power of what’s going on. Because the first two acts of the film did a great job of building up all of these different worldviews and the themes that have the payoff of the movie work so well.
Part of the reason for that is because the movie has four different storylines happening while all start to merge in the back half of the film. You have Emily Blunt as this weather reporter who starts to experience all of this weird stuff. You see Josh O’Connor that’s trying to get information on the aliens to his friends. There’s Colin Firth as the leader of this government group that’s trying to capture Blunt and O’Connor. And then you have Coleman Domingo’s plot line that has some mystery surrounding it, and you’re not sure what it means until the second half. These are great actors playing great characters and the reason for that is because each of them provides a different worldview for what’s going on. Firth’s character is presented as the antagonist of the film, but he’s also not really the antagonist. He’s a government man that’s trying to keep classified information private and hidden, so he’s the antagonistic character towards our heroes but he’s not a villain. O’Connor’s character is the opposite of that belief that the public should know the truth about what’s going on. Those are four main characters of the film, each of them has their own plot line that’s driving the film forward. But in all of them, there’s side characters that provide another worldview for what’s going on. Blunt’s boyfriend is played by Wyatt Russell, John Walker from the MCU. His character is the one that sort of provides the audience’s reaction to what’s going on, as he’s just so confused as to what’s happening. O’Connor’s character has a girlfriend who is religious and provides this religious point of view for what’s going on and having these debates about whether God loves all creatures, whether they’re human or not. You have this great ensemble of characters and all of them feel different because you can see what their worldview is about learning about this alien information.
Another positive I’d say about the film is that the film felt grounded. Grounded isn’t the word that you’d expect to describe an alien invasion film. Since the film is about the secrets being kept and whether people deserve to know the truth or not, the film feels very grounded in our world. If this movie was to happen in real life I feel like this film is about as close of a depiction as we’ve seen. You have the skeptics of this being true. You have the people that want this truth to be revealed and will do anything they can to reveal these secrets. Since it’s not a big action blockbuster with people running away from the alien spaceships or anything like that, it’s all about the human perspective on this happening and therefore it’s able to have a distinct flavor and voice to it. Going back to what I said earlier, but that’s really one of the aspects of the film that surprised me. It’s a thoughtful and human film that makes this alien invasion feel grounded and rooted in our reality. And that’s not something that I thought I would use to describe the film when the film started last night.
Finally, as it is a Steven Spielberg movie you must talk about Steven Spielberg as a director and the talent behind this film. Simply put, it’s truly remarkable that Spielberg is almost 80 years old and is still able to direct great movies that are competently made and look fantastic. I was able to see this film on IMAX and while there aren’t any big CGI shots or big CGI spectacle, there’s still shots in this film that look gorgeous and sometimes they’re simple shots of people talking. But Spielberg knows how to frame a shot and make it look really good even when the shot is supposed to be simple. There’re also a few sequences that are meant to evoke these big emotions as both the characters and the audience are learning certain information about what’s going on. They’re sequences that are hard to direct and get right and without a masterclass director like Spielberg at the helm, these sequences would’ve failed and the movie wouldn’t have worked as well as it does if Spielberg wasn’t directing it.
The Bad
The first thing that comes to mind is the film is 2 hours and 25 minutes long and it was a bit too long. I think the film could’ve been tightened up by 5-10 minutes, nothing super crazy. But you can feel the runtime of the film as it’s going along and tightening up certain parts could’ve helped the film. The scenes that could’ve been trimmed were some of the scenes earlier on with Wyatt Russell’s character. There’re a few scenes that felt like they dragged on because they were trying some jokes that didn’t really fit the film. Some of the jokes are in relation to Russell’s character. I think he’s important to the story and to Emily Blunt’s character, but I think there’s a version of this film where those scenes were trimmed down and it moved a little bit faster.
The other problem with this movie is there’s two action scenes that felt out of place with the rest of the film. The marketing heavily highlights these action scenes that involve a car driving through a house and a train sequence. Both are fun sequences that have some crazy stunts. But they don’t really add anything to the story except for a way for our characters to escape. I felt like you could watch this movie and it’ll play the exact same without these sequences. They felt forced in there like Spielberg knew that the film was a bit too slow and so he added in action scenes to keep the film more engaging for the audiences. I respect Spielberg for doing that, I just don’t think they were necessarily needed in the story they were telling.
Final Thoughts: Disclosure Day was one of my most anticipated films of the year and I thought it was good. Some of the reactions to the film have been a bit polarizing and so I’m very curious to see what the general audience’s opinion on this film is. For me, I really dug it and thought it was an interesting look at the alien invasion sub-genre that felt very grounded and human despite tackling very over the ideas. Steven Spielberg is almost 80 years old and still has magic.
Final Thoughts: 8.8/10 (B+)
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