Few directors in the world speak the language of film quite as fluently as Steven Spielberg. Over more than five decades, he’s delivered some of the most memorable and cherished movies for several generations of cinema-goers. Disclosure Day sees Spielberg returning to sci-fi with a film that gives us shades of Close Encounters and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, but a screenplay from David Koepp that keeps the film from landing among the classics. 

Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt star as Dr. Daniel Kellner and Margaret Fairchild. He’s a former government contractor with an ex-nun girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), and she’s a TV meteorologist living with her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell), in Kansas City.

Our story begins in medias res with Daniel and Jane fleeing a shady pseudo-government force tracking them down over stolen information that could upend the entire world. Daniel learned the truth when he worked for the Wardex Corporation, led by a sinister Colin Firth as Noah, but joined a group of rebels headed up by Wardex defector, Hugo (Colman Domingo), in a quest to publicly disclose everything. 

Miles away, Margaret is a restless meteorologist who aspires to work in a larger market, though her boyfriend seems perfectly happy with their lives in Kansas City. Something in her mind is triggered after a peaceful encounter with a cardinal, and her life is upended when she starts speaking in a mysterious language on air.

The mystery unfolds with excitement, wonder, and some incredible car chases… until the cracks in the story’s facade become impossible to ignore toward the end of the film.

There’s no question that Spielberg is a master filmmaker. His signature shot—the camera pushing in on an actor, along with John Williams’ score swelling and Janusz Kaminski’s beautiful cinematography—never fails to create a sense of awe and wonder. That’s very much still the case with Disclosure Day, however, the impact feels dampened here because the scene the actors are reacting to doesn’t feel particularly wondrous or awesome.

As you’d expect from performers of this caliber, the actors give their all. O’Connor sells even the clunkiest dialogue with conviction, Domingo delivers a monologue with a sparkle in his eyes that feels reminiscent of the best of Spielberg, and Firth’s villain is genuinely menacing. But it’s Blunt that stands just a bit above the rest because her character is afforded a greater arc. In one scene, Blunt gives us one of the most realistic portrayals of a panic attack ever put to screen, something that makes Margaret feel real and relatable in a way that sometimes evades the other characters.

There are hints of Spielberg classics as well as larger themes similar to impactful sci-fi films like Arrival, Contact, and even Signs, but the story can feel disjointed and the pace uneven enough to prevent the emotions from resonating in a deeper way. The filmmaking tells us to feel something, but the story doesn’t quite pull it off.

The film also aims for messages of hope and empathy, absolutely noble narrative pursuits, but it feels oddly dated when released into our current world. Our main characters are driven by the belief that the public needs to know the truth, that it will prevent so many political conflicts if people know there’s more out there than just life on earth, but this almost feels quaint and adorable when we look around at how awful everything is around us. 

The wide-eyed idealism that this “disclosure” could improve the world actually takes a lot of steam out of the film in the third act when the driving forces of the separate storylines crescendo and all the characters finally converge. The film wants us to feel the awe, the hope, the inspiration, but it just doesn’t land with the desired emotional punch. 

Even with the lack of emotional resonance, Disclosure Day is certainly not a bad film—due in large part to the G.O.A.T. delivering his unmatched filmmaking skills—it’s just that it’s a pretty good film when it should be an outstanding film.