E.T. (1982) Review

Seen in IMAX as my first time seeing this in a theater and honestly probably only my third time seeing it ever. ET terrified me as a kid so I didn’t give it another shot until I was like 30.

I think It worked out because ET is not so much a kids movie as a movie meant to evoke what it was like being a kid. I think it hit way harder as an adult than it would have if I had seen it a thousand times growing up.

Maybe I’m biased as the oldest brother to 2 siblings but Michael is the most interesting character in this and it’s not close. Him yelling “no!” as the flowers die completely destroys me in a way none of the other emotional beats do. The way he subtly breaks through every assumption we have of him at the start of the movie and turns out to be a loving, clever, and vulnerable fallback man-of-the-house is astounding character work.

Anyway, this was just a magical time at the movie theater all these 40 years after its release. Melissa Mathison, Stephen Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and John Williams showed up to make a freaking movie.