I despise the current glut of mawkish, manipulative Christmas commercials with a burning passion.

However, I did rather like this "sequel to E.T." featuring Henry Thomas (who played Elliot). Spielberg himself apparently had input into the direction (that bit with the snowman has an unmistakeable whiff of Spielberg). A shameless cash-in aimed at manipulating those whose very DNA is all but coded to the original film (like me)? Probably, but for some reason I didn't hate it.