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by Frank Showalter

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

B-: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
1977 | United StatesUnited Kingdom | 138 min | More...
Reviewed Nov 9, 2003

A man becomes consumed with visions after a UFO encounter.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a landmark science fiction film. Similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind forgoes the “aliens-are-monsters-bent-on-human-destruction” theme that had reigned over science fiction throughout the 1950s, and instead portrays them as benevolent explorers, eager to learn as much about us as we are about them. However, unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey’s impressionist-style of storytelling, Close Encounters of the Third Kind leans toward a more campfire-style of storytelling. This style both helps and hurts the film.

It helps because Richard Dreyfuss’s character of Roy Neary is painted as very much the everyman. He’s not an astronaut or a scientist, instead he’s a telephone repair man struggling to hold down his job and hold together his marriage. This easily identifiable persona makes the story much more personal. When things begin to happen to him we, the audience, identify with him and thus get drawn into the story even further.

But it’s writer-director Steven Spielburg’s decision to also rely on campfire-style devices for suspense that also hurt the film. There are several cheap scenes that try to build tension but only serve to frustrate the viewer as they do nothing to advance the story. We know Roy is going to discover the source of his visions, so what’s the point of a scene with him “comically” missing the inspiration over-and-over again? We know Roy is going to escape and discover what’s really going on at the mountain, so why the scene with the helicopters gassing the mountain, only to have Roy “nearly fail” to make it out in time? Close Encounters of the Third Kind is, at it’s heart, a very intellectual film, and these “dumbed-down” scenes only seem to play to the lowest denominator.