E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore, K. C. Martel, C. Thomas Howell, Sean Frye. [PG]

A benign, “ugly-cute” alien gets stranded on Earth and is befriended by a young suburban boy (Thomas), but the little extra-terrestrial starts wasting away so far from home, and government agents have their own designs on this unusual visitor from the stars. Much-loved and extremely popular family film (once the highest grossing motion picture of all-time, dominating the crowded summer of ‘82), that rare breed of uplifting tearjerker, but the film simply doesn’t measure up to the hype, even though its fairy tale innocence is bound to appeal to everyone but the grumpiest of cynics. The story is little more than a thinly-veiled mash-up of the boy-and-his-dog formula with a heavy-handed Christ allegory, and as skillfully creative as Spielberg’s filmmaking precision and craft are here (e.g., consistently keeping the camera low for a child’s-eye perspective), the emotional manipulation he attempts is temporarily effectual at best, cloyingly overwrought at worst. Despite its sometimes overbearing effect, John Williams’ heralded score really does sing and soar, though. Script by Melissa Mathison. Won 4 Academy Awards for Williams’ music, Sound, Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects. A young Erika Eleniak appears briefly.

62/100