E.T.

Bomb Rating: 

I don't know what alien crap smells like but there must be an awful lot of it lying around this particular household.

When this Steven Spielberg film isn't advertising Reese's Pieces, it's telling the story of the dumbest race of aliens in the universe. Presumably wanting to gather some samples, the aliens park their spaceship in one of the most populated areas on the planet, then proceed to strand one of their researchers, leaving him to beat his head against the wall trying to communicate with the child, Elliott (Henry Thomas), who finds him.

A number of scenes in this movie leave the wary viewer absolutely stupefied. First of all, I don't know what alien crap smells like but there must be an awful lot of it lying around this particular household. When Elliott's sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore), asks if E.T. is a boy or girl and Elliott quickly responds that it's a boy, one can only wonder where Elliott has been putting his fingers. Then after Elliott wanders off to school with his brother Michael (Robert McNaughton) commenting about how it's obvious that E.T. is a "higher intelligence," the higher intelligence promptly gets into the refrigerator and drinks all the Coors. If that's a higher intelligence, then there are a lot of smelly, obese, spacetruck-driving rednecks about to make their play for control of the universe.

After the kids play dress-up with their super-smart alien, Speilberg's requisite Evil Government Agency (EGA) drones show up in space suits and immediately begin sharpening the anal probes. While composer John Williams regurgitates his score from "Star Wars," the nasty government people prod E.T.'s orifices until he's dead, then let the kids run off with the body.

E.T. returns to the land of the living and just as he's about to skip town he says his goodbyes and, ironically, delivers this message to Drew Barrymore: "Be good." It's too bad E.T. didn't stick around a few years to watch Drew snort all those royalties right up her nose. Given his disposition for the hooch, though, E.T. and Drew could have teamed up for the sequel: "E.T. 2: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

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