Thrilling, wonderful, uplifting - and just very, very good

Rating: 10/10 (5 July 2015)

Picture the scene. It is 1982. Three 19 year old young men decide to go to the cinema to find out what all the fuss is about. This is not a demographic that is easily impressed, and certainly not by a "kids" film. We arrive to find a queue around the block. As we are waiting, the audience from the previous showing file out past us, nearly all in tears. We pay our money and take our seats. The house is packed. And, for the duration of the film, everyone is enthralled by the simple but beautiful story that plays out on the screen. The audience laughs, cries, whoops and gasps as one. At the final cut, as the lights come up, the three friends turn to each other and simultaneously admit,"That was good!" That was an understatement of course. It was fantastic, and has never been bettered. To judge the effects by today's standards is silly, and to criticize it as "manipulative" is really to pay it a high compliment. That is what good films and stories do, manipulate the audience or the readers' emotions. E.T. does this so well, and with such brilliant use of the medium and techniques of cinema that it must surely be regarded as one of the best films ever made.