Dir: Steven Spielberg | Scr: Melissa Mathison | Ph: Allen Daviau | Prod: Kathleen Kennedy & Steven Spielberg | Mus: John Williams | Ed: Carol Littleton | PD: James D. Bissell | Snd: Charles L. Campbell | Cast: Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, K.C. Martel, Sean Frye, Tom Howell
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A small boy finds and befriends a stranded extra-terrestrial creature, and – aided by his brother and sister – attempts to help it contact its people and return home, but ill health and government interference hamper their progress, in Spielberg’s diverting piece of family-friendly sci-fi. The humorous, easy-going first half of the film provides plenty of undemanding entertainment, but as it progresses it becomes ever more overblown and sentimental, with Williams’s score proving particularly excessive.
