More magical than Harry Potter

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2016)

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is a magical film and one of the best movies Steven Spielberg has made. The acting is tremendous all- around. The kid acting is especially great. Drew Barrymore and Henry Thomas's performances are probably some of the best kid acting ever in a movie. Really the only other great kid actor I can think of is Haley Joel Osment for roles in The Sixth Sense, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and many others. Everything you could want in a good family Spielberg movie is in E.T. There's great acting, smart writing, beautiful use of cinematography, good lighting with Spielberg's famous shadow work, an amazing musical score by John Williams, and, of course, there is plenty of memorable moments and what is often referred to today as the "Spielberg magic". The whole movie is a masterpiece, but I did find a few flaws that I tried to overlook but couldn't because they just brought down my enjoyment of the film too much. The first few minutes of the movie are really slow. There isn't dialogue for at least about five minutes in the film. Many people would say that that's a certain style that benefits the film. I wanted the movie to get to the point a little bit quicker, and I think the slightly longer exposition didn't help. There were a few other knit-picks here and there, but I won't get too deep into that.