Review of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) by Joe C — 04 Jan 2015

***Director's Cut***.

By the late 1970s, Hollywood had cranked out so many alien invasion movies that film-goers had started taking it for granted that flying saucers in the sky meant we were all in a lot of trouble. Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind took this notion, turned it on its head, and gave us one of our most enduring all-time sci-fi classics. Written and directed by Spielberg about a man mysteriously drawn to a location after a supernatural encounter, Close Encounters not only celebrated a universally human curiosity for the unknown, but has a brilliant buildup to one of the most iconic third acts in history. In Spielberg's vision, our extraterrestrial guests meant us no harm; they were merely curious, and their presence, rather than being a harbinger of doom, signaled our collective evolution and hinted at our limitless possibilities.