Super 8 (2011)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Jr. high filmmakers in 1979 encounter real-life hijinx exceeding their most imaginative scripts.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I gave it 3 stars. It was entertaining, and nicely done, but I felt like I've seen the same movie already several times.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I also gave it 3. Started out great, but faltered.






(mild spoilers to follow)

How appropriate that the highlight of this flick was a gigantic trainwreck? It wasn't enough to be a science fiction story, or a disaster movie, it also had to be a Romeo & Juliet story, and a story about the director's childhood, and a story about losing a parent, and a story about the late 70s, and an homage to Close Encounters, E.T. and Stand By Me, among others etc etc etc. By the time the Cop Dad encounters Criminal Dad and says "let's go save our kids" I could barely watch it anymore. But the first 30 minutes were pretty awesome.

[Edgy MD]

I haven't seen it. (Wifey is resistant.) It's interesting to get two threes here. This movie with these themes should be right in Seven Spielberg's sweet spot. And to get ratings of merely good, or not get a hit out of it, suggests he's really losing his touch. Or his self-awareness. Which I think is something he's always had to wrestle with at least a little.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Spielberg was the producer; jj abrams was the director. But yes, very speilbergy.

[Edgy MD]

What a soundtrack.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Bye Bye, Love

[Edgy MD]

How appropriate that the highlight of this flick was a gigantic trainwreck? It wasn't enough to be a science fiction story, or a disaster movie, it also had to be a Romeo & Juliet story, and a story about the director's childhood, and a story about losing a parent, and a story about the late 70s, and an homage to Close Encounters, E.T. and Stand By Me, among others etc etc etc.

Some Twister and Superbad action in there as well.

J.J. is a funny dude. I'll say he makes a nice batch of candy. I like his casting. I like his cuts. I like his relationships. I like how he builds action.

But afterwards, just like with Star Trek, I'm thinking, "Wow, there were some big dumb holes in that movie that just didn't have to be there."

___

Spoiler: Like, who drives head on into a train and survives to make a dying speech?

Like, even after what you thought was surely a dying speech, he survives and gets taken into custody.

Like, who gets drummed out of a military intelligence job with the biggest military secret on earth in his head and gets to live a life as a middle school bio teacher?

And he actually knew more than any of the guys he walked away from.

And a train, carrying that top secret project he was working on just happens to be passing through the outskirts of their town? C'mon.

_________

Aside from that, as per Spielberg's signature films, the kids are all perfect. Prematurely tall kid and pyro kid were like Bad News Bears leftovers. Who didn't recognize pyro kid? The lead kid even looked like the girl from Jurassic Park. My wife instantly recognized lead girl as somehow related to Dakota Fanning. Creeps me out when she does that. I'm all "Who's Dakota Fanning?"

[Vic Sage]

finally caught up with this one on netflix.
pretty disappointing, considering the premise and talent involved, and the overrating it generally got from the press.

take a mediocre "the airforce has captured an alien" movie (or X-FILES episode), mix liberally with Spielbergian coming-of-age characters and parent/child dysfunction themes, throw it against a background of disaster movies and other 70s cultural detritis, without a genuine surprise, plot twist, or original notion anywhere in the vicinity, then shake it up and spew it out.

feh.

[metirish]

Finally watched this after it being on the DVR for ages...............I agree with all that has been said.....Edgy's points are well taken....train crash scene was spectacular, I cared about the characters it's just that it became very predictable .......I do like the whole E.T. Wonder Years vibe it had going on........still trying to figure out why the alien kidnapped the people , hung them upside down but left some of them live?

[Edgy MD]

To eat like popcorn while he was working!

[Edgy MD]

I dunno. I just watched it again and liked it a lot. Not a single character didn't feel authentic. Loved how much Cop Dad looked like Randolph Mantooth with some Kent McCord on the side.