‘Allen’ Netflix Review: A Dull, Weird and Entirely Unnecessary ‘E.T.’ Rehash

The first live-action feature from the Australian animation studio behind the hugely successful Bluey seems determined to prove a couple of things. First, that being exceptionally good at animation doesn’t necessarily translate into having the same storytelling chops when working with live actors in a world that vaguely resembles our own. And second, that Steven Spielberg was absolutely right to turn down the idea of making a sequel to E.T., no matter how much money it might have made.

One suspects, in fact, that an actual sequel to that 1982 classic would have been considerably more interesting than this plodding and, in several respects, downright bizarre movie called Allen. The film is so blatantly conceived as an E.T. follow-up that its opening ten minutes are essentially a condensed remake of Spielberg’s film, only with a different cast and a different alien. The setup is almost identical: a kid named Petey encounters an extraterrestrial visitor who shows up at his house, plays with his toys, eats his snacks, watches TV, meets his siblings and eventually heads back to his home planet after promising they’ll be friends forever. His name isn’t E.T. but Allen, which is pretty much the only significant difference. Everything else feels suspiciously familiar.

The actual story picks up several decades later (judging by the pop-culture references, the original encounter must have taken place sometime in the ’90s), with Petey (TJ Powers) now a grown man who hasn’t exactly made much of himself. He lives with his brother, works at a toy store and remains so fixated on his childhood encounter with the alien that he spends his spare time calculating when another space portal might open, allowing Allen to return as promised. His pregnant sister-in-law puts up with him, but his brother has had enough. After a fire destroys their home, he effectively kicks Petey out. The woman he’s interested in has chosen someone else, an obnoxious cop who conveniently doubles as the story’s villain, and Petey suddenly finds himself with nowhere to go.

That’s when his prayers are finally answered: Allen comes back. After the initial confusion and a few moments of disbelief, the two pick up right where they left off, as if no time had passed at all. They’re still obsessed with the same gadgets, songs and games, and spend an entire night together at an amusement park that happens to be closed. It’s around this point that the writers introduce a plot complication I won’t spoil here, except to say that it’s so bizarre it sends the movie into increasingly awkward territory. The resolution, meanwhile, is handled in the usual fashion for this kind of adventure, with plenty of running around, last-minute rescues and convenient escapes.

Allen is clearly aimed at very young children. The humor is elementary, most of the jokes are visual, and the only remotely compelling idea in the story is what this reunion means to Petey, and what his lifelong attachment to an imaginary-sounding extraterrestrial friendship has done to his life, both positively and negatively. The problem is that the writers choose an extraordinarily peculiar way of bringing that idea to the surface. I’ll leave it to a psychologist to make better sense of the implications of that particular narrative decision, and of what unfolds between the two characters as a result.

Beyond that strange storytelling choice, though, there’s very little to recommend. The movie is dull, unimaginative and surprisingly short on ideas. The one potentially interesting subject it could have explored — the toll Petey’s lifelong obsession with Allen has taken on his friends and family, as well as on his own prospects — only surfaces near the end, in a rather sweet but belated scene of family reconciliation. By then, there’s not much left to dig into. Allen is little more than a misguided E.T. knockoff masquerading as a sequel. Spielberg’s alien, at least, managed to spend the rest of his days peacefully on his own planet.