Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have made, in "The Terminal," a sweet and delicate comedy, a film to make you hold your breath, it is so precisely devised. It has big.

E. T.,' FANTASY FROM SPIELBERGTHE camera pans across a starry sky so clear that it has the effect of putting you in touch with the galaxies. When you lie on your back and stare into such a night sky, you feel as if you were tumbling upward through space.

The camera slowly descends to earth to come to rest on a spaceship, its lights ablaze, comfortably settled in a clearing in a California forest. Small, Munchkin- sized creatures, whose abdomens glow on and off like those of fireflies, attend to their tasks of gathering specimens of earth rocks and plant life.

Suddenly the visitors sense that they are about to be discovered. The alarm sounds. It's everyone back on board for an emergency takeoff that, unfortunately, leaves one crew member behind, marooned on a strange planet, without a friend to his generic name. This is the eerie prefatory sequence to Steven Spielberg's ''E. T. the Extra- Terrestial,'' an enchanted fantasy about the relationship of E. T. and the practical, staunch 1. Elliott (Henry Thomas), who discovers the frightened alien in the toolshed, befriends him and hides him in his bedroom.

With the best of intentions and the collaboration of his older brother, Michael (Robert Macnaughton), and his younger sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore), Elliott attempts to aid and to domesticate E. T., who, though he's only a little taller than a coffee table, is both civilized and learned. More than anything else, the patient, gentle- natured E. T. wants to go home. E. T. the Extra- Terrestial,'' which opens today at Loews Manhattan Twin Cinema and other theaters, may become a children's classic of the space age. The film, directed by Mr. Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison from an idea of Mr.

Spielberg, freely recycles elements from all sorts of earlier children's works, including ''Peter Pan'' and ''The Wizard of Oz.'' ''E. T.'' is as contemporary as laser- beam technology, but it's full of the timeless longings expressed in children's literature of all eras.

Mr. Spielberg and Miss Mathison have taken the tale of Dorothy and her frantic search for the unreliable Wizard of Oz and turned it around, to tell it from the point of view of the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Woodman. Dorothy has become E.

T., Kansas is outer space, and Oz is a modern, middle- class real- estate development in California. E. T.'' is not to be compared with Mr. Spielberg's ''Poltergeist,'' which is a child's ferocious nightmare recreated as a film.

Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to simply as Grand Central or incorrectly as Grand Central Station) is a commuter, rapid transit, and intercity railroad. The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The film is about a man who becomes. Provides plot synopsis, and information about cast and crew.

E. T.'' is a slick, spirited comedy about children's coping in a world where adults have grown up and away from innocence. Elliott, Michael, Gertie and their friends must protect E. T. from their elders, who are trying to catch E. T. to study him, to subject him to all sorts of unspeakable tests and, possibly, to dissect him like a frog. It isn't difficult to fool Elliott's mother, Mary (Dee Wallace). She is a loving parent but so preoccupied by her recent separation from the children's father that when E.

T. totters across the kitchen, she doesn't see him. It's more difficult outwitting the Government security people, who have somehow gotten wind of E. T.'s presence. Then, too, there's E. T.'s terrible homesickness, which has all of the symptoms of a terminal disease. Mr. Spielberg may not have photographed ''E.

T.'' entirely at a child's eye- level, but the film gives that impression. It's a wise film without being smart- alecky, even if the children, when alone, talk a lot more vulgarly than many parents would be happy to hear. The problems faced by Elliott, E. T. and the others are mostly comic ones. How to get E. T. out of the house, unseen, so that he can build a radar with which to communicate with his associates? The children wait till Halloween, throw a sheet over his head and lead him boldly through the front door.

Once outside, E. T. The Empire Strikes Back'' - than others, children disguised as terrorists. The most difficult problem is saving E. T.'s life, once the earth's polluted atmosphere has caught up with him, and just how this is accomplished, I'm not completely certain.

There are some subtleties in the narrative toward the end that, I suspect, only a child will fully grasp. The special effects, including flights through the air on ordinary bicycles, are beautifully realized.

The best one of all is the E. T. itself, created by Carlo Rambaldi. E. T., who looks a lot like the creatures seen at the end of Mr. Spielberg's ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' walks, talks, plays jokes, does tricks, gets tipsy and, at a crucial moment, even seems on the point of weeping a large, probably salt- free, tear.

Mr. Thomas, Mr. Macnaughton and Miss Barrymore give most appealing, modest performances of the sort we now associate with children in Spielberg films, especially with Cary Guffey in ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind.''. A couple of minor reservations: John Williams's soundtrack music is beginning to sound just a tiny bit familiar, not all that different from the scores he has done for ''Star Wars,'' ''Close Enounters'' and ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' among others. Also, at the end of the film, there is an all- out assault on the emotions that depends, it seems, more on the rising volume of this music than on the events portrayed. E. T.'' is good enough not to have to resort to such tricks. E. T.,'' which has been rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), contains some mildly vulgar language. Enchanted Fantasy.

E. T., directed by Steven Spielberg; written by Melissa Mathison; director of photography, Allen Daviau; edited by Carol Littleton; music by John Williams; produced by Mr. Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy; released by Universal Pic- tures. At the Bay Cinema, Second Avenue and 3.

Street; New York Twin, Second Avenue and 6. Street; Movieland, Broadway and West 4. Street, and other theaters. Running time: 1. 20 minutes. This film is rated PG. Best Series On Netflix 2015 Uk Football more.

Mary . . . . . Dee Wallace. Elliott . . . . . Henry Thomas. Keys . Peter Coyote. Michael . Robert Macnaughton. Gertie . . . . . Drew Barrymore. Greg . . . . . K.

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