Andrew_Hicks's Full Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
I don't think I'm making the breakthrough of the century by declaring E.T. a four-star movie, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it when I pulled out our dog-eared copy, bought in the mid-80s, and watched it a couple weeks before my 20th birthday. Steven Spielberg has made some incredible movies, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Schindler's List, but never did he capture the universal power of friendship and family quite like he does here.
We all know the story of E.T. A lovable three-foot alien is stranded on Earth when his compatriots are forced to take off without him. So he moves in with Elliot (Henry Thomas, a great kid actor whose career never took off like it should have), a precocious kid in need of a friend. The whole family is just perfect for this movie; there's the single mom (Dee Wallace) whose husband headed off to Mexico and left her to raise the kids, cute little Gertie (Drew Barrymore, everyone's favorite 6-year-old coke addict) and teenage brother (Robert MacNaughton).
The early scenes in E.T. are the best ones. Spielberg establishes the family members' relationships with each other in clever and touching ways, and does the same with Elliot and E.T. As is customary in the movie realm, there are plenty of comical alien culture shock alien scenes. It's good for product placement, too; after Elliot baited E.T. with some prominently displayed Reese's Pieces, I went out and bought a bag. And of course, there's the movie's best sequence, when E.T. is at home drinking can after can of beer and Elliot is at school intoxicated, about to dissect a frog.
Their minds are telepathically connected, you see. E.T. watches a romantic movie and Elliot sweeps one of his little classmates off her feet. It's one of those sentimental, hilarious, touching moments Spielberg provides in his best movies. It serves the function of showing how close the boy is to the alien, but goes so much further in depicting the magic of youth. Same with the classic flying bicycle silhouetted in the moon.
E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial is just plain wonderful, no matter what age you are. Spielberg, when he's not bringing dinosaurs back to life, knows how to portray the human soul and touch audiences masterfully. He puts viewers through the wringer during the last 30 minutes of this movie and, even though we know the ending will be okay, he can make someone who's seen this movie umpteen million times care about the characters. That is the beauty of filmmaking, and rare as hell.
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