Get ready for long lines, repeat business, toy, game and T-shirt spinoffs and a richly deserved passel of Oscar nominations. In E.T. (it stands for Extra-Terrestrial), director Steven Spielberg combines the gimmick-a-minute intensity he brought to Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark with the emotional intimacy he started to develop in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The result is his most personal film yet, and his best. E.T. packs the classic fairy-tale wallop of The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan, from which it openly borrows. The story concerns an alien creature trapped alone in a California suburb after his fellow E.T.s beat a hasty retreat in their spaceship. A young boy, beautifully played by Henry Thomas (a young Texan discovered in Raggedy Man), comes to his aid. With the help of older brother Robert MacNaughton and kid sister Drew Barrymore (John Sr.'s granddaughter), Henry hides the E.T. in his bedroom away from his mother, Dee Wallace. Melissa Mathison's screenplay is a near-perfect blend of intelligent humor and sentiment. The E.T., designed by effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi (who also worked on Alien and Close Encounters), is the scene stealer. Whether he's stalking the house in a bathrobe, learning English from a child's computer game, or accidentally getting soused on beer, the E.T. is sure to steal more hearts than Yoda. When the creature's life is in danger, and Spielberg turns loose his arsenal of dazzling yet controlled effects, the movie yanks a viewer into the fray. Spielberg is Hollywood's new Pied Piper. Audiences can follow him anywhere and rarely be anything other than richly entertained. (PG)
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