"It was nothing like that, penis breath!"
"Elliot! (suppressing laughter) sit down!"
We open with a poorly lit scene with a group of squealing aliens running about in a forest as some shadowy 'X-Files' type guys chase them. As they pile into their ship, one of them gets left behind. Soon it's found a middle class white family (headed by a single mum - just the right amount of hardship) and has befriended their youngest child.I know it's a classic, but the whole thing feels too cutesy. This may be because I saw it a little late, so maybe I wasn't young enough to really enjoy it, or have the warm fuzzy childhood memories about it that I do about, say, 'Star Wars'. Most likely because of this, I'm not as naturally forgiving about this movie - I am trying to be fair, but most of it felt like the Ewok sequence from 'Jedi'. The music is even similar (in both movies it was of course done by John Williams).
It seems to be a movie written for little brothers, as many movies are. Poor older brothers. Are they forever doomed to have no movies written about them, have more fun as children, and then become criminals? The kids are a lot of fun though. The writing for them is excellent, their conversations sound very natural, and the actors playing them all are pretty good. It's the kind of thing that 'Super 8' was trying to achieve, but done better.
It's fairly paced, and the ending is alright if really predictable. I remember when I first saw it as a kid, I got really bored during the long goodbye scene as ET leaves (even the ship taking off took forever, and at the time I remember thinking that surely if they could travel past light speed they could have a door that closes more quickly and a ship that could take off faster than a helicopter that's been set on fire). As I re-watched the film my attention span is now longer, but I still found it a little drawn out.
One final thing: I don't think ET needed to have so many super powers. If he was only more willing to use them he could contact his buddies and get home much faster, and the movie wouldn't have been half as long.
I feel rather guilty about rating this movie so much lower than many real critics, but it just never hit me in the right way, personally. I never claimed to be solely analytical though; around 50% of how i feel about a film is how I feel while watching it. It's a very emotional art form, in my opinion.
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial: 65.3