Declassify the files!
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This has gone on for far too long, and it is high time that the powerful are held accountable for their lies. The conspiracy must be exposed and the truth returned to citizens.
The Trump administration may have declassified more than 160 military archival records related to UFOs (or UAP – “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon”) three weeks ago), but released some grainy surveillance video to diverting attention has nothing to do with what the public demands. No matter how hard you try to bury it, the truth is elsewhere, and Fox Mulder’s quest still remains strangely premonitory today.
Sorry, what files were you already talking about?
As disappointing as the recent mass posting of American documents online was, it had the merit of coinciding with the marketing hype surrounding Steven Spielberg’s new film, in which The Beard revisits his passion for visitors from elsewhere. The hype around Disclosure Day has even led some enthusiastic fans to speculate that it might be a low-key sequel to the director’s 1977 classic, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
Warning: this is not the case, but the two works undeniably share the same DNA.
We meet Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a renegade cybersecurity specialist who works for the very dubious company Wardex. It holds sensitive information: 107 hard drives containing all of the American images of encounters with extraterrestrials. It’s all there, from the Roswell incident in 1947 to today. He also stole a piece of alien technology that his boss, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), wants back at all costs.
Scanlon has taken this would-be whistleblower’s girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), hostage and wants to know who at Wardex betrayed him. Daniel’s colleague, Hugo Wakefield (Coleman Domingo), is one of them, because he too believes that the time has come for the world to know the truth.
At the same time, TV weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), sparkling on screen, is experiencing a real metamorphosis. It all starts when a red cardinal bumps into her kitchen window and suddenly she can communicate in every language. She even discovered telepathic talents. When she goes on air, she has a seizure and begins to speak, emitting a series of strange clicking sounds, as if she were inhabited by a foreign entity.
The destinies of Daniel and Margaret are destined to cross, against a backdrop of imminent war, while the United States and Russia are on the verge of sending nuclear warheads until they annihilate each other.
Can irrefutable proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life forms unite the world and remind humanity of its capacity for compassion? Or will this evidence shake faith in God and further destabilize governments – to the point where it might be time to revive Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again”?
There’s a lot to be applauded about Spielberg fully embracing his X-Files side in 2026. A state conspiracy about to be exposed by a handful of truth-digging mavericks who still believe everyone will take it at face value counting a report broadcast on a local television channel and will not immediately put it in the category of mush generated by AI or fake news? We would like to believe it.
The problem is that David Koepp’s cumbersome screenplay seriously weighs down the whole thing.
His script contains many passages which jubilantly switch into something which owes a lot to Fringeherself the heir to Chris Carter’s cult series. But, without saying too much, it also combines clumsy dialogues, more story holes completely disconnected from our time than can be shaken with extraterrestrial artifacts, and moments of strong literalism that will make any even slightly lucid spectator want to scream: “We understand, in the name of skepticism of Dana Scully, let’s move on!! HAS”.
The less we say about the aesthetics of the aliens, the disappointing stereotypes (which in no way shake up expectations), as well as some animals in frankly awful computer-generated images, the better.
The remarkable work of Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth (who plays a grizzled version of the Cigarette Man from The By wanting to question the capacity of humanity to accept a revelation which would call into question faith as well as science and the very meaning of our presence on Earth, the director signs a strong and timely plea in favor of dialogue and empathy – which we discover to be considered by extraterrestrials as the “evolutionary advantage” of the human species.
Add in some discussions about the ethics of secrecy, a mocking nun (Elizabeth Marvel) and a spectacular train crash sequence, and you have an entertaining and overall thought-provoking blockbuster.
If Spielberg’s intentions are indisputably laudable (his heart is, as often, ostensibly on his sleeve), the 79-year-old director at times scuttles his roller coaster with big helpings of sentimentalism. This is hardly surprising given some of his past films, but when sentimentality turns to platitude, emotional involvement like patience of the spectator are put to the test.
Those who fully adhere to Disclosure Day will applaud this unapologetic optimism and find it refreshing in troubled and cynical times.
For others, more divided and unable to forgive certain pitfalls of the scenario, the revelations of the film will not arouse wonder. On the other hand, they will provoke some real bursts of laughter.
The drawn-out finale in particular – which should have ended a good quarter of an hour earlier – will seem intergalacticly corny. Not because the film is based on the existence of aliens, but because Spielberg and Koepp have clearly learned nothing from the much-derided ending of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullpreferring to double down, and in the worst way possible.
With all its faults, Disclosure Day attempts ambitious poker moves. It ultimately fails to elicit the same astounding wonder as some of Spielberg’s earlier forays into science fiction, but its propulsive energy carries it through to the end. And basically, even a good two thirds of a Spielbergian adventure still guarantees a satisfactory cinema release. We will only regret that the mysteries of Disclosure Day do not offer a more convincing outcome and that its message of hope ends on such an anticlimactic note.
The truth is always elsewhere. Declassify files.
All. THE. Files.
Disclosure Day is currently showing in European theaters and will be released in American cinemas on Friday.
