Of course, he has indulged this particular fixation, with immense success, a few times previously. As such, the understandable, appropriate and welcome secrecy surrounding Disclosure Day has encouraged speculation that it might, in fact, be a stealth sequel to his sublime 1977 alien-visitation classic Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.<\/p>\n
![\"Disclosure](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/disclosure-day-2.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fair supposition. There is indeed shared narrative DNA here: Spielberg has once again drawn inspiration for his story (scripted by long-time collaborator David Koepp) from real-life accounts of UAPs \u2014 unidentified anomalous phenomena, aka UFOs \u2014 giving the film a relatively grounded feel. Plus, like Close Encounters, Disclosure Day follows disparate folk compelled to heed an inner, supernaturally planted drive to complete a potentially perilous journey, which brings them into gradual convergence.<\/p>\n
In this case, we have Josh O\u2019Connor as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity specialist in the midst of the mother(ship) of all security leaks, and Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, a flighty weather presenter who finds she can suddenly speak all languages \u2014 human and otherwise \u2014 and read minds. Both are remorselessly stalked by Colin Firth as the silver-fox boss of a sinister agency (the only Brit who gets to keep his own accent, presumably because he\u2019s the bad guy). But do they all definitively occupy the same world as Roy Neary, Jillian Guiler and Claude Lacombe? Is this in fact a Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind? To us, the answer is obvious by the final few minutes, but we\u2019ll let you decide for yourself.<\/p>\n
Features some of Spielberg\u2019s best action in years.<\/p>\n
Spielberg is channelling the \u201970s in other ways, too. Disclosure Day has the pacing, tone and old-school grit of an Alan J. Pakula conspiracy thriller, albeit with a heavy X-Files twist. Meanwhile, its earnest faith in the power of anti-establishment truth-unearthing recalls another \u201970s-style Spielberg picture, namely 2017\u2019s The Post.<\/p>\n
Shot largely on 35mm film and buoyed by a stirring John Williams score, Disclosure Day feels like a welcome flashback to Proper Grown-up Cinema in this era of CG drenching (though its use of obviously digital animals for a few key scenes is an unfortunate, but thankfully only minor, blemish). Spielberg\u2019s fluid visual mastery is evident throughout, including some delicious grace notes. In one scene, a TV-forecasted hailstorm is cheekily foreshadowed by a close-up of tumbling breakfast-cereal hoops; in another, the director frames a reflection of Blunt\u2019s face in the back of a security guard\u2019s crew-cut as Margaret snatches his thoughts: she is literally in his head. The film also features some of Spielberg\u2019s best action in years, including a gripping high-speed train sequence that tugs you right back to his vintage Indiana Jones era.<\/p>\n
For all its impressive flourishes, there are elements, mostly associated with its sci-fi lore, that might chafe for some viewers. For example, we are told that the story\u2019s core alien-tech MacGuffin is not a \u201cmagic wand\u201d, yet its effects present more as sorcery than physics, while one big reveal might prove just a tad too hokey for lovers of good old-fashioned reality. Speaking of which, there is also a doomy backdrop of imminent world war (presumably nuclear) that is kept too vague to be impactful, and the script\u2019s needless raising of a big philosophical\/religious question results in a disappointingly trite answer.<\/p>\n
Even so, Spielberg\u2019s heart is so resoundingly in the right place that you\u2019d have to be a truly committed grump to let any of this obstruct your enjoyment. Amid all the thrills and sci-fi spills, and with the help of a uniformly strong cast (though Blunt is the standout here), he presents what is essentially a timely plea for compassion and communication. Humanity can do better, he believes \u2014 even if it needs a little childhood-fantasy help.<\/p>\n
A masterfully executed sci-fi conspiracy thriller that beams us right back into the Spielberg heartland of eerie wonder, everyman \u2014 and woman \u2014 heroes, and optimistic uplift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rogue cybersecurity expert (Josh O\u2019Connor) and a psychically disturbed weather presenter (Emily Blunt) are pursued by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-629656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}