#38: E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL

Starring Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace and Peter Coyote. Written by Melissa Mathison, directed by Steven Spielberg. Music by John Williams. Budget $10.5 million. Running time 114 minutes.

Ah, they don't make films like this anymore, and by 'like this anymore', I mean films with practical special effects and compositing, rather than flat, lifeless CGI, cos that's how they'd do it if they remade this today. 

Released originally in 1982, this was a phenomenal success grossing nearly $800 million at the box-office. It cemented Spielberg as the greatest film maker of his generation and torpedoed the vastly superior The Thing at the box office, but that's another story.
 
The story sees the E.T. of the title getting marooned on planet Earth, when his spaceship leaves him behind. I like to think it was deliberate choice on behalf of his crew-mates, as none of them liked him and took the first chance they could get to leave him behind. It's only when the sneaky little turd manages to 'phone home' and alert the extra-terrestrial authorities that he's been marooned by his shipmates, that they have to go back and, grudgingly, pick him up. I recently discovered that later those shipmates popped three caps in E.T's fat head and dumped him out of an airlock, at least that's the scene that Spielberg shot, which was later cut out.

Anyway, after getting left behind the brown, stumpy-legged, little stool, hobbles to the nearest urban conurbation, gets ripped off his tits on M&Ms, junk food, and booze and starts grooming a bunch of impressionable kids, including a vulnerable 9-year old kid called Elliot Taylor (Henry Thomas), his sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) and their old brother, Michael (Robert MacNaughton), and before you know it, the sneaky alien shit has mind-melded with the Elliot, who's not copping too well with the divorce of his parents, getting him drunk and forcing him to act all too inappropriately with a female classmate. E.T. bonds with, or grooms, the rest of the family until they're all running round answering his every beck and call. All the time managing to avoid the kid's mum (Dee Wallace), who's trying to hold down a job while bringing up three emotionally damaged kids. 

Just then, the authorities, led by Agent Keys (Peter Coyote) who've been hunting the dreadful little nonce since he first set down on Earth manage to track him down to the Taylor household, forcing the alien deviant to use his mind control powers to aid him in his escape, in the middle of the night, leaving behind children who he's managed to touch and probe with his glowing digit. 

Or that's the take I took away from the film. I've not seen this film since 1982, when it first opened, when I originally took an ex-girlfriend, who cried through it, although to be fair, I cried too, when the bastard federal agents didn't shot the alien paedo when they had a chance.

The fact this film works is a miracle, on paper it has no right to work, and yet it does, and I think that's down to the extraordinary child cast, who are all excellent, particularly Henry Thomas, who almost single handedly carries this film, that is when Drew Barrymore's not on screen, damn she's just so adorable! And yet despite all that, all the good stuff, I still can't like it. I admit it's well made, how could it be otherwise? But I just don't like it, it's too mawkish, too sentimental and just too downright nice, there are unanswered questions it leaves, the creature's powers are ill defined and altered to suit the situation and the use of kid's toys to manufacture a wind-powered distress signal still irks me.

If this film was made today, it would use CGI and that's why it would fail, using an actual puppet, Spielberg's cast get to interact with it and that closeness and eye-line means they sell the concept perfectly. Spielberg directs brilliantly, using skills he learned with Jaws to sell ET and reusing some of his favourite camera trickery, including a slow reverse zoom crash. 

And special praise indeed to the utterly superb soundtrack by John Williams, it's a thing of awe.

As I said, I hated this film the last time I watched and this time, I marvelled at the skill and artistry of Spielberg and the the performances he milked from the cast. This is a film, with a great sense of humour, and a real sense of child-like innocence and it was an utter treat to see it back on the big screen, and yet despite all of that, if I never see it again, I'll be fine.

 I think in my old age I'm getting kinder and more loving, which is a shame because I was going for cantankerous and belligerent.  

8/10