Today we saw Disclosure Day (2026) at the theater. I'm not happy. The plot is all mushed up, but I'll try to disentangle it.
The Kidnapping: We begin at a wrestling match, which gives us some beefcake. But things go downhill fast. Danny (Josh O'Connell) is there to hand over a backpack to the Bad Guys who have kidnapped his coworker or girlfriend or sister (we aren't sure which). Why is it always a kidnapped girl? Why can't it ever be a guy?
But he points an alien magic wand at them, and they're so flustered that they let him and the Girl drive away. They hide out at the convent where she used to be a nun.
Big reveal: they only just started dating. He's upset that she didn't inform him of her religious past, and she's upset because he has a briefcase with something that Bad Guys kidnapped her to get.
The Cardinal: Weather girl Margaret and her boyfriend (Wyatt Russell) are having problems. She keeps being dissatisfied by the town they're living in, and insisting that they move, but Jackson likes it in Kansas City. Also, her father died when she was 17, there's a pesky missing time incident from when she was 10, and animals and birds keep staring at her.
Today she was stared at by a cardinal, and suddenly could speak Russian. She's late for work, so she zooms through downtown Kansas City, and when a cop stops her, gets out of a ticket by telling him about his marital problems, and advising him on how to reconcile with his wife.
At the studio, Margaret is going on the air in a few minutes, but she has to translate the Korean of a guy who is being interviewed but did not bring along an interpreter, stare at three people and give them advice about their marital partners (all heterosexual, over and over and over). When she starts her broadcast, she begins speaking in a click language, then collapses.
The Big Reveal: Danny is actually working for a guy named Hugo, who sends Operative Santiago (Tommy Martinez, nude after the break) to drive them to a safe house. There he tells his Girlfriend that he has tapes documenting 70 years of the Evil Corporation harassing aliens: confiscating their crashed spaceships, stealing their technology, dissecting their corpses, imprisoning and torturing survivors. An advanced alien civilization let this happen without retaliation? Why aren't our cities smoking ruins?
The Evil Corporation wants to keep all of this hidden, because if the public finds out, they will panic. Girlfriend thinks that if the public finds out, they will stop believing in God and start worshipping the aliens. (She even telephones the convent to ask, but the Mother Superior says that her belief in God wouldn't be affected by aliens.)
Going North: At the hospital, everything checks out. The doctor asks about the missing time and her father's death, and suggests that Margaret began speaking in Russian, Korean, and the click language because she's under stress. Really? I'm under stress -- could I learn Mandarin?
The Crucifix: While Danny is out looking for cell phone to call Boss Hugo, the Head Corporate Guy -- I'll call him Boss Hogg because he looks and acts like a corrupt Southern sheriff in a 1970s trucker movie -- uses an alien magic wand to appear before the Girlfriend and force her to tell them where the safe house is. "Oh, and if we don't get there in time, would you mind killing Danny yourself?" She can avoid his mind control temporarily by jamming a crucifix into her hand, but it doesn't work for long.
Left: Danny dick, in case you haven't seen it lately.
Meanwhile, Weather Girl Margaret calls Danny to warn him that Corporate Goons are coming to kill him. He sees their 28 cars from a distance, but instead of running away, he steals one of the cars, grabs his Girlfriend, and zooms away with them in hot pursuit.
That night, as they are sleeping in a hotel in Indiana (at least seven hours from Kansas City), Boss Hogg uses the alien technology to have Girlfriend reveal their location again! Does Danny get smart and leave her there? No, he shoves her out the bathroom window and allows himself to be captured.
More after the break
Together Again: Margaret finds out where Danny is, and helps him escape by appearing as the dead wives of several of the men, including Boss Hogg. She never, ever appears as a boyfriend. Heterosexual romance is universal human experience.
By the way, we discover why Boss Hog is so obsessed with keeping knowledge of the aliens secret. It's because his wife died. I don't understand the connection.
They head back to Kansas City, with the goons in hot pursuit. Fortunately, Operative Santiago (Tony Martinez), who brought them to the Safe House, arrives with fire trucks to help them.
Left: Tony Marinez nude. Sorry, he's straight.
The House: In Kansas City, Boss Hugo (Coleman Domingo) and his associates have built an exact repllica of the house where Margaret grew up, with everything exactly the way it was when she was ten years old. How would they know the location of every knick-knack and art supply? Apparently this is necessary to allow Margaret and Danny to remember their missing time.
They're strapped in, and remember following staring animals through the snow for a standard alien abduction experience. Why does it have to be a boy and a girl?
Ok, they remembered. What for? Margaret already has alien mind control powers, and the magic wands will do the rest.
Boss Hogg and his goons arrive, but Margaret makes the house, fire engines, and people invisible, so they can escape and head to the tv station. More mind control to allow her and Danny, who is an expert on tv production, to interrupt the scheduled program and broadcast the tapes of the Evil Corporation tormenting aliens.
Ulp, Boss Hogg and his goons cut the power, and blow up the backup generator. Not to worry, Margaret uses a magic wand to restore power, and the broadcast goes on. So magic wands are literally magic?
Left: Boss Hogg.
The Broadcast: As Margaret narrates and the tapes are broadcast, other stations pick up, then other networks, then it goes live around the world. And everyone -- everyone -- is watching. I don't understand why they instantly realize that these tapes depict real aliens. Wouldn't you be a bit skeptical.
Danny's girlfriend Jane re-appears, and in a big reveal, they have a living alien -- a huge, wobbly one. Redditers were joking that it is the aging ET. Wait -- is it a captive, or there willingly? I don't understand. It hugs Margaret and Danny. The end.
Beefcake: Only the wrestlers.
Gay Characters: Coleman Domingo's Hugo is the only guy who doesn't mention a wife or dead wife, so maybe he can be gay by default.
Heterosexism: Incessant. Over and over we hear of husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, heterosexual desire as the meaning of life.
Time Warp: Alien abduction narratives were big in the 1990s, with books by Whitley Streiber, John Mack, and Budd Hopkins. But there's been nothing since around 2000. It's been 26 years; we've lost interest.
Plot Holes: Nothing makes any sense. But mostly I'm upset over the heterosexism. If I had a dime for every time Margaret evokes a guy's wife...
Boss Hogg: No actor listed on the IMDB looks anything like him, but Colin Firt gets third billing, so maybe it's him, unrecognizable under layers of Corrupt Southern Sheriff makeup.
Left: Colin's butt
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