Every time we see the arrival of a new Steven Spielberg movie, we go in thinking we will see another great movie, like “ET”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), “Jaws”(1975), and his best ever, “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). The only exception is the movie “1941”, released in 1979, which was universally agreed to be a bad film.

The new movie “Disclosure Day” is another Spielberg film about aliens and whether they have ever visited Earth or have existed on Earth for many years. Unfortunately, Disclosure Day plays like a below average movie of the week chase drama that was convoluted, uneven, overly complex, unexplained, and boring. I was stunned at how bad this movie was, given that it was directed and co-written by Spielberg.

The star of this movie is Emily Blunt, who plays a meteorologist (Margaret Fairchild) for a Kansas City news show. We find out over these (too long) two hours and twenty-five minutes that Margaret had an encounter with an alien as a child. Then, after a sudden encounter with a red robin bird, Margaret can suddenly read minds and speak in several languages, and can talk an alien language that sounds like clicking. What follows are several chase scenes and another central character, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), who is some kind of an independent insider who is the only one who knows what is going on with Margaret and another man who was also abducted by aliens, Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor). Collin Firth plays Noah Scanlon, who is the head of a security agency that has for decades been trying to conceal proof of alien life.

The huge problem with this entire screenplay is that nothing is explained. Who is this character? Why is this happening? A better movie than this one would be a documentary explaining how someone like Steven Spielberg could make a movie this bad. Like the other recent bad movie, “Ella McCay”, written by James L. Brooks, this film once again demonstrates how difficult it is to write a great screenplay.

The IMDB movie ratings for this movie are a bad 6.9, with the concensus opinion: “Interesting concept, but poor execution—confusing plot, weak payoff, and too much spectacle without emotional weight.” The Rotten Tomatoes critics reviews are a way too high 82%, with my rating 60% and a recommendation to see ET, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind and run from this surprisingly bad, waste of over 2 hours.