When this Steven Spielberg film isn't advertising how much E.T. loves Reese's Pieces Swisher Sweets (which apparently outbid Reese's Pieces for the product placement this time around), it's telling the story of the dumbest most digitally enhanced race of aliens in the universe. Presumably wanting to gather some samples human specimens to torture, 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 kidnap and ransom the child, Elliott (Henry Thomas), who finds him.

Note: New enhanced special review effects follow:

Were those special effects cool or what? Isn't it ironic? I have enough budget to fund 100 quality independent ventures (that will now likely never see the light of day), but instead I blow it on adding computized twinkles to a project that was considered finished 20 years ago!

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. Giving new meaning to the phrase "digitally enhanced!" Ha ha! 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 living room and drinks all the Coors kills and eats the family dog. 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 (in the interest of a kinder, gentler movie, a joke about Michael's "terrorist" costume is changed to refer to a "hippie" costume -- after all, we'd hate to scare away a new generation of tykes or their affluent parents with any mention of "terrorists") , Speilberg's requisite Evil Government Agency (EGA) drones show up in space suits and immediately begin sharpening the anal probes trying to reach out in genuine understanding. While composer John Williams regurgitates his score from "Star Wars," the nasty heroic government people prod E.T.'s orifices engage E.T.'s imagination until he's dead sleeping, 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." "Don't marry Tom Green unless you're a big fan of goofy faces during lovemaking." It's too bad E.T. didn't stick around a few years to watch Drew snort all those royalties right up her nose spend all those royalties on rubber chicken suits for her honeymoon. 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."