SUPER 8 Movie Review

Man do I miss Steven Spielberg. And say what you want about his movies, you can't say they aren't some of the most entertaining movies you've ever seen. Jurassic Park, Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones, the man just makes instant classics. And those are his directed movies. The movies he often takes a "supporting" position to, such as Executive Producer or Producer, have often been just as if not better than his own films. Super 8 is a perfect example.

The movie takes place in the summer of 1979 with a bunch of kids making their own short horror film for a contest. One night while filming they are inadvertently made witness to a horrific train wreck. But the horror doesn't end there, as many unexplained disappearances of locals and strange events ensue days later. When one of the gang of children go missing, and the town is forced to evacuate, the group of children sneak back into town to save the missing girl, and stumble on something more horrific than they could have imagine.

Let me just start off by saying I enjoy director J.J. Abrams. He brought us Lost, the reboot of Star Trek, and Cloverfield (the last one was not so great, but it had its moments). But I can absolutely see that Spielberg took a good deal of interest in this film, because it has that classic Spielberg feel to it, and most definitely sounds like one of his films. Sonically, this movie was almost as pleasing to me as Jurassic Park, and that's saying a lot, since sonically that movie was incredible. I also have to say that I was fairly impressed by the child actors. Again I felt Spielberg's influence, since he seems to have a knack for bringing out the best performances in younger actors - more than many directors. The main reason that it has Spielberg's signature all over it though is because of that faintly juvenile style of story telling. Spielberg tends to make his action and adventure films very over the top, but always tones the violence and horror back just enough so that kids can enjoy it. I'm entirely sure why he always does that, whether it be because he has kids or because he knows his largest demographic, but in any case he still manages to pull it off.

Now all that being said, I have to say I wasn't entirely impressed with the story. It had so much build up that it quite literally seemed to rush past the climax to the ending. When the picture went to black I was a little miffed, because the end didn't feel as though it had much to it. There was the great reveal, and a couple of misleading moments that made you think the film was going in a new direction, and then it cut straight to the point, fade to black. It wasn't at all what I was hoping for, but the ride getting there was most definitely fun and interesting.

Super 8 is definitely worth a rental, it's easily one of the best Spielberg movies that he never actually directed.

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