Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Steven Spielberg (Screenplay)
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, J Patrick McNamara
Plot: After an encounter with U.F.O.s, a line worker feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Classic Sci-Fi Film
Story: Close Encounters of the Third Kind starts as a group of planes all have an encounter they can’t or refuses to explain with a UFO. We move to Indiana as the Guiler family get a strange encounter as young boy Barry (Guffey) follows the strange lights and noises in the dark. The area is also suffering from a black out with Roy Neary (Dreyfuss) needing to leave his family to help fix.
As the scientific world is trying to explain the strange noises coming from the sky they must find the location being set to them. Roy becomes obsessed with the vision he has seen but Jillian goes in search for her son that is taken by the lights.
With the government covering up what is about to happen it is up to Roy and Jillian to discover the truth before it is too late but what they find is something completely unexpected.
Thoughts on Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Characters/Performance – Roy comes off as the classic crazy person who believe they have been involved in an alien idea, he puts his family life in danger to figure out the message placed inside his head and will stop at nothing to learn the truth, Jillian also suffers a visit but her character is drawn to find her son that is taken. These two work together to get to the bottom of what happen. Claude leads the scientific search for answers and is what you would call the typical scientist.
Performance wise, Dreyfuss is great in the leading role showing his normality between his crazy, Dillon is great too as the concerned mother with the rest of the cast all giving good performances without taking away from the main characters.
Story – For the time this story was something special, we have an alien coming to visit in a friendly manor which is fine because at the time it was only evil coming from space. When you look at everything that unfolds you are left with the trailblazer for the style of film that has been borrowed from so often. The idea the government can cover up this is believable along with the idea the one person considered crazy will go all out to find the answers does too.
Sci-Fi – Aliens coming to visit, do you get anymore sci-fi that this, no of course not.
Settings – The settings used in this film show us the aliens would only be coming to small less populated areas rather than big cities as they want to make calm friendly contact.
Special Effects – For the time the special effects are amazing, in places some of them have dated but they are still good in the most part.
Final Thoughts – This film was ground breaking for the time, while more recently we have been given Arrival which is strikingly similar with the interactions between the aliens and humans, this is refreshing to see in a world of monsters coming from space.
Overall: This is the classic people talk about but I can see the younger audience not enjoying it all.
Rating
