The simplest negative reviews I read of this film captured its biggest problem perfectly, all of them variations on the same complaint: "a protracted chase movie with some alien stuff at the end."

To be as fair as possible to Steven Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp, the film almost needs a disclaimer for anyone who misunderstands the title. It isn't really about aliens. It's a whistleblower thriller about a man trying to prove that aliens exist.

That man is Daniel (Josh O'Connor, permanently looking like a confused deer caught in headlights). He once worked for Wardex, a private contractor responsible for suppressing evidence of the US government's decades-long contact with extraterrestrials while quietly integrating recovered alien technology into the military-industrial complex to maintain America's strategic advantage.

Guided through clandestine phone calls by his mysterious handler Hugo (Colman Domingo), Daniel steals hundreds of classified video files proving alien visitation and sets out to expose the truth to the world.

The film's central philosophical question is explored through Daniel's relationship with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), a former nun who still clings to her faith. She wonders whether humanity is emotionally capable of accepting Daniel's revelation. What happens to our belief in a loving creator if we discover we were never the only intelligent beings in the universe?

When the story begins Daniel is already on the run. Wardex director Scanlon (Colin Firth) has kidnapped Jane in an attempt to force Daniel to surrender the evidence, but he somehow escapes with both Jane and the USB drives, launching the extended chase that many critics found so monotonous.

Meanwhile, the film introduces Margaret (Emily Blunt), a television weather presenter trying to settle into another new city with her endlessly patient boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell), despite a long history of abandoning jobs whenever frustration sets in.

One morning a cardinal lands outside her apartment window, triggering something buried deep inside her. She suddenly begins speaking unfamiliar languages, can hear the thoughts of the police officer who pulls her over for speeding, and later, during a live weather broadcast, unexpectedly starts speaking in an alien language — the moment featured so prominently in the trailers.

Margaret has no idea what's happening. She only knows she feels irresistibly drawn toward Daniel, despite having no idea who he is.

She embarks on a cross-country journey toward him while Daniel continues trying to stay one step ahead of Wardex's paramilitary operatives, protecting both Jane and the evidence he's risking everything to reveal.

Whether Daniel ultimately succeeds in exposing the truth — and whether Margaret eventually understands the connection between her strange abilities and a traumatic incident from her childhood — is best left unspoiled. The real surprise is how little you'll care by the time the film finally gets there.

The reasons are numerous, and they all feel symptomatic of filmmakers who have either lost much of their creative spark or simply aren't interested in pushing themselves anymore.

The first problem is the sheer number of plot contrivances. Once Daniel's connection to the alien conspiracy is finally explained, you're left wondering what the odds are that the one person uniquely tied to the phenomenon also just happened to work for the only organisation that knows the entire truth.

Wardex itself never works as an effective antagonist. Colin Firth does what he can, but the organisation resembles a discreet television news company more than a terrifying secret agency. Despite the guns, black SUVs and ominous briefings, they're about as intimidating as a cheese sandwich.

Several pursuit scenes verge on accidental comedy. In one sequence Wardex agents spend ages watching an isolated farmhouse believing Daniel is trapped inside, completely oblivious to the fact he's crept up behind them closely enough to steal one of their vehicles.

Margaret's powers create another problem. Once awakened, she can apparently speak unknown languages, read minds, sense Daniel's location from hundreds of kilometres away and even render buildings invisible whenever the screenplay requires it.

The answer to whether she can do something is invariably "yes", provided David Koepp needs a convenient way to get her out of trouble. Abilities appear without explanation and frequently disappear just as quickly.

But the cardinal sin (get it?) is the depiction of the alien mythology itself. Years ago, during my time as an entertainment reporter, I interviewed director Tarsem Singh about Self/less. I asked him how he'd decided to visualise the technology that transfers consciousness between bodies, and he admitted he wasn't especially interested. He joked that if necessary his production designer could simply have actors tap a few buttons on an iPad.

Given the extraordinary visual imagination he'd displayed in films like The Fall, his indifference to such a central concept surprised me. This film feels remarkably similar.

Spielberg and Koepp had the opportunity to create an entirely new visual mythology surrounding extraterrestrial contact — the same way Spielberg permanently reshaped how cinema depicts sharks, dinosaurs and World War II.

Instead, they fall back on the same familiar imagery that's dominated popular culture since The X-Files: Roswell, giant grey aliens with oversized black eyes and every other UFO cliché imaginable.

When Hugo wheels out a covered wheelchair and it's immediately obvious the film is about to unveil its ancient alien, my only thought was: "That's it?" I've been looking at versions of this creature across popular culture for more than twenty-five years.

Even the reveal itself lacks imagination. Rather than giving audiences a memorable Spielbergian set piece — from the man who staged the mothership's arrival at Devil's Tower — we're told the aliens present themselves as animals, before they're introduced as CGI creatures wandering into a child's bedroom like a darker live-action remake of Snow White.

Visually, the film disappoints almost as much as the storytelling. The bleak Midwestern winter locations naturally limit the colour palette, but aggressive digital grading leaves everything looking washed out and lifeless. The actors often resemble wax figures, as though the entire film has been rendered inside a computer, with only the occasional glint in their eyes reminding you they're real people.

As soon as the credits rolled I knew I hadn't liked it, although I suspected I might soften once I'd reflected on it. Unfortunately the opposite happened.

The more I thought about it, the more apparent its shortcomings became. It's strangely inert and visually anonymous — two qualities Spielberg once seemed incapable of producing.

With a Spielberg alien film failing to ignite audiences while independent horror creators on YouTube are generating genuine cultural events with projects like Obsession and Backrooms, the whole experience becomes another reminder that cinema isn't what it was even a few years ago.

Once again, William Goldman's famous theorem proves itself beyond doubt: nobody knows anything.