‘Disclosure Day’ Review: Steven Spielberg’s Invigorating Chase Thriller Taps Into the Mania for Alien Conspiracy Theory, but It Never Becomes a Close Encounter With Wonder

Where Spielberg's visions once seemed to be leading the culture, now he's following decades of lore and mythology.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

Latest

• ‘Jean-Michel’ Review: Jean-Michel Basquiat Finally Gets the Fantastic Documentary He Deserves 14 hours ago
• ‘Scary Movie’ Review: The Sixth ‘Scary Movie’ Has a Few Choice Gags, but Mostly It’s So Meta It’s Meh 5 days ago
• ‘Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That’s the Weight of the World)’ Review: The Tribeca Festival Kicks Off with Questlove’s Indelible Portrait of the Great but Underrated EWF 6 days ago

You could say the Trump administration did a huge favor to “Disclosure Day” by releasing a trove of America’s UFO files — excuse me, UAP files — just last month. The timing was a coincidence, but it felt like the perfect piece of publicity to drum up anticipation for Steven Spielberg’s epic thriller about a rogue attempt to disclose U.S. government evidence of alien visitations. Of course, it doesn’t take rocket science to see why Trump released those files (can you say…distraction?). And the grand irony is that the effect of them may not be to set up “Disclosure Day” in quite the ideal way one assumed.

Related Stories

Bowen Yang Tells Rachel Sennott About Delaying 'SNL' Exit After a Surprise Lorne Michaels Phone Call as the Duo Discuss Their Comedy Starts, 'I Love L.A.' and More