Movie Review: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

7/10

I can't tell you how upsetting to me that 7/10 is.

In my mind's eye, Close Encounters sits there staring at me like a puppy I just kicked and spat on.

Here's the thing, by my own rules it can't get a higher score. It just can't.

Why do I care about that anyway? Well, to me Close Encounters was always a fond experience I recalled from my childhood. The central tale of a man faced with something so simply profound he loses touch with the "ordinary world", costing him his wife and his old life in the process, was just awesome.

I love the design of the ships, the way the little ones seem like playful children - "Toys" as Barry describes them. This little boy is an excellent performance from the young lad Cary Guffy - actually responding to the toys given as bribes to get him to do the scene!

To get to my point, there is a superb scene in Barry's mom's kitchen, as he finds the fridge open and food all over the floor. He then is startled by two aliens.

Here's why the scene is great - it focuses on the young boy and more importantly his reactions to the new arrivals. But since he's a kid he's not at all afraid (the actor was responding to crew in masks!) and after the initial surprise he is enchanted and excited.

That's how you do aliens. Remember when Signs, a fairly effective tension movie, went bad? Close Encounters has the same problem:

IT SHOWS THE ALIENS!

Dear god. If you exist please wipe the final twenty minutes of this movie and replace it with him just walking into the spaceship and never seeing the aliens. Please?

It's almost enough to turn me to prayer.

This horrible, horrible, misstep costs the film dearly - a single shot of the appalling drawn on eyes on a lame plastic mask sticks with me more than anything now.

It's still a great movie, and the alien symphony at the end is still a wonderful bit of film-making and genuinely magical - Richard Dreyfuss, Bob Balaban and Francois Truffaut are all excellent. i just can't get the plasticy faced children in alien costumes out of my head now.

A