Starman

1984 science fiction romantic comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: It's the exact same plot as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial except in this version, things get erotic between E.T. and Elliott. It's also a version where the producers don't have any money, so instead of using special effects and making an alien-lookin' thing, they just use the guy from Tron.

I wrote down a note while watching Starman. It's illegible because I wrote it, but I think it might say "shouts wad - explosion!". I don't know what that would mean. I can't remember a wad - explosion anywhere in the movie. Whenever I do remember anything about this movie (I remembered little from when I saw it as a child), I'll probably remember the creepy visual of an infant Jeff Bridges transforming into an adult Jeff Bridges while Karen Allen watches. Weird stuff. The special effects in this film are a bit different. The space stuff looks weird, the blue hue looks weird, and everything that happens in Karen Allen's character's house once the alien arrives looks weird. But the effects are interesting and really don't date this movie. I like both Bridges and Allen in this. She quite easily could have turned her character into a wimpy obnoxious damsel in distress type but didn't. And he had to have felt pretty stupid doing some of the movements required for his character, but his performance is never overplayed and he brings a dignity to what could have been a really silly character. I think this movie is really funny, sometimes unintentionally so. When Karen Allen reveals that she doesn't know her states, any time Jeff Bridges walks in the first half of the movie, and a lot of the dialogue as the alien learns new English words and tries to use them. I do wonder how he picked up some of the weird syntax nuances in our language. I don't like the last half of this movie nearly as much as the first half, and Starman does have it's share of groan-inducing moments (i.e. when he looks at a picture of the husband and a Jeff Bridges head pops out of the picture and starts rotating; a lot of the love stuff; [SPOILER ALERT!] the whole baby cliffhanger thing). But this, despite essentially plagiarizing the plot of E.T. which came out two years earlier, manages to top Spielberg's blockbuster.

shouts wad - explosion