ET: Hang Up!

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2008)

Sometimes you have to write a review that flies in the face of everyone else. I already have a terrible "Useful" record for my 300+ reviews, so I'm more than ready to annoy my readers by saying that ET is Steven Spielberg's worst movie.
The reason I say this is that at no time did I feel genuinely concerned for the health and well-being of the little, Reese's Pieces-gobbling goblin from the planet Zorkon. The movie, in every way, was so wrenchingly and wretchedly cutesy, so us-against-the blue-meanie government, and so predictable, that if it weren't for the fact that I would have caused a big, stinky fight over my being rude, I would have gotten up half-way through the movie and walked.
This is just the type of movie that appeals to people like my hippie-dippy sister, big on cutesy and fighting the evil Reagan Administration! I know I have few friends out there in IMDb-land. I like what is considered dark and edgy (remember, my wife still won't forgive me for making her watch Chinatown). I don't like Karo Syrup poured on Wonder Bread, movie-wise.
I want something meaty, with gristle and those sharp little bones that jab you in the throat.
ET delivers nothing of those, just two hours of sugary goo, with a pack of evil baddies in environment suits, Peter Coyote, and (until the remastered version came out) people trying to ventilate the alien with . . . guns!
Then, for the goodies, there's more of the chaotic home-life that worked so well in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but fails here, cuddly kiddies spouting "penis breath," No-Nukes t-shirts, that scene with the bicycle, and a overwhelming feeling that Spielberg just decided he was going to go all out to manipulate your emotions.
The crowd came out of the theater all glassy and gassy from their two hour feasting on cinematic Reese's Pieces. I came out, feeling like the man-ape in Altered States, looking for something to hunt down and eat, like the extra-terrestrial.
Tastes like chicken?