E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial ***** (1982, Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore) – Classic Movie Review 303

Steven Spielberg’s magical 1982 sci-fi movie about a troubled small boy called Elliott (Henry Thomas) who befriends a funny-looking but fortunately friendly extra-terrestrial was back then the biggest money-making film of all time. The alien is left all alone on bewildering planet Earth after his spaceship has to take off in a hurry without him.

Elliott discovers E.T. looking for food in his family’s garden shed and soon makes the cuddly visitor his new best friend. Unfortunately the authorities are desperately trying to track down the whereabouts of Earth’s first arrival from Outer Space. Then E.T. gets seriously sick. And, eventually, the kid realises he has to let go of the thing he loves and somehow finds the strength to summon up enough emotional courage to help the alien to escape from Earth and return to his home-world.

In exhilarating film-making from the master of quality story telling, Spielberg makes this warm and innocent tale a wonderful, heartfelt experience. The movie has that infectious movie elusive charm and allure that’s virtually impossible to conjure up, but Spielberg proves he is the perfect magician. It’s a little bit sentimental, it is Spielberg after all, but sweetly so, and it shops short of being quite the Disney version of alien landings.

The movie’s special appeal is spearheaded by natural and remarkable performances from Thomas as the sweet, gentle 10-year-old hero Elliott, Robert MacNaughton as his brother Michael and Drew Barrymore as his sister Gertie. And special effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi’s creation E.T. is adorable. After all, he’s the titular star of the movie.

Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, K C Martel, C Thomas Howell (Tyler) and Sean Frye are also in the sweet cast. They perhaps don’t have that much to do, maybe not quite enough to be truly effective, but they do it memorably.

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Melissa Mathison has dreamt up an incredibly imaginative, emotional and enthralling screenplay, which is propelled along delightfully and ultra-smoothly with the help of John Williams’s Oscar-winning score and the brilliant Oscar-winning special effects by Rambaldi and visual effects by Dennis Muren and Kenneth Smith. E.T. won two other Oscars for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing.

It was Oscar nominated as Best Film and Allen Daviau was nominated for his superb cinematography. It won the Golden Globe as Best Film and Williams won for his score. There was only one Bafta award – for the score.

Spielberg personally supervised the transfer to DVD from the best print possible with beautiful sound and vision.

Rambaldi, the Italian effects wizard famous for designing E.T. and the mechanical head effects for the creatures in Alien, died aged 86 in August 2012. He said: ‘When I finally saw the finished movie even I cried a little.’

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(C) Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 303

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