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Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest living filmmakers and a lifelong obsessive of the alien question, has finally returned to the topic that defined so much of his career — and the result is one of the most disappointing films of the year.

Disclosure Day had all the makings of a potential masterpiece. With Spielberg’s name attached and a spine-tingling trailer promising profound new insights into extraterrestrial contact, many hoped it would serve as a career-crowning statement on humanity’s place in the cosmos. Instead, audiences got a flimsy, outdated chase thriller that feels more like a forgettable X-Files episode than the visionary work of a cinematic legend.

Josh O’Connor stars as Daniel, a cybersecurity expert working for a shadowy organization called Wardex, tasked with keeping alien secrets under wraps. When he decides to blow the lid off the cover-up, he embarks on a cross-country road trip with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), dodging anonymous goons while waiting for the green light to release stolen files. Emily Blunt shines in a separate storyline as a weather forecaster who suddenly gains the ability to speak every language on Earth — including a few from “elsewhere” — but even her magnetic performance can’t save the film from its muddled execution.

Colin Firth is miscast as the standard-issue villain Noah, delivering lines that feel ripped from a generic conspiracy thriller. The film’s biggest mystery isn’t the aliens — it’s why one character spends so much time building a life-size model house.

For a director who gave us Close Encounters of the Third Kind and has spent decades pondering humanity’s relationship with the unknown, Disclosure Day feels shockingly uninspired. The themes — whether aliens and a supreme deity can coexist, and why empathy matters — are delivered through long, on-the-nose speeches rather than the subtle, awe-inspiring storytelling Spielberg mastered in his prime.

The action sequences are competently choreographed, but they echo Indiana Jones beats without the heart or wonder. In the end, there’s very little here that wasn’t already teased in the trailer — or explored more memorably almost 50 years ago in Close Encounters.

Spielberg remains a towering figure in cinema, but Disclosure Day stands as a rare misfire — a film that promised cosmic revelations and delivered little more than a standard car-chase thriller with extraterrestrial window dressing. It’s not the worst movie of the year, but for fans who grew up on Spielberg’s magic, it may be one of the most deflating.