Movie Review: Super 8

I saw this film about a month ago, and haven't felt like writing a review. I guess you could say I was let down by this Spielberg+Abrams extravaganza. The first half of this film is glorious, and I give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, as the film continues on it gets worse and worse. I give the second half of the film 2 stars, if that. It feels like watching the director's show 'Lost' from start to finish. It starts strong, and then it loses you.

From the commercials and trailers it seemed this was going to be a Spielbergian type film but with the young fresh energy of J.J. Abrams. Abrams has made some good movies lately. I think he's better at it then creating television shows. If Lost was only two hours long it would have been an amazing movie, instead of a long cumbersome money making machine fooling people into thinking it's worth their time to watch it. And Steven Spielberg used to be an amazing visual storyteller, however as time marches on he gets richer and older and his directing work is becoming more disconnected from what audiences might actually enjoy viewing. He's much more suited for producing at this point, before he ruins another Indiana Jones movie.

Super 8 looked to me like across between Goonies and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or was it Stand by Me meets E.T.? It has the realistic looking kids that say curse words and are written well. And it takes place in the late 70's, reminding of us of a time when Spielberg movies were good. The sets, costumes, and cinematography create a real nostalgic feel throughout the film, reminding us of a simpler time, when movies didn't suck. But realistic looking kids and retro sets aren't enough to create a new classic.

Super 8 needed something like what happened during the filming of Jaws back in the day. If the shark had worked perfectly, that movie wouldn't have been scary, and Steven Spielberg may have never had a career in Hollywood. Now that J.J. Abrams is poised to take the creative reigns from Spielberg, Hollywood has changed and it's damn near impossible for the "shark to not work" when you can always "fix it in post" using the latest state of the art computer graphics. Not only is the monster alien in Super 8 not scary enough or even friendly enough, it's just not tangible enough. Actors staring at nothing on set, just to be added in later, doesn't begin to compare to Elliot and ET having a conversation on screen together, in the same room.

The movie starts off with a bang. The kids are interesting, and you love the little zombie movie they are making. The train crashing sequence is breathtaking. I will be watching that again and again with the sound turned up when it's out on bluray. After the train crash, it's exactly like Stand by Me, because the kids know a dangerous secret they are torn about about telling grown ups about. Mysteries start piling up and suspenseful glimpses of a dark creature keep the movie intriguing just a little bit longer, until eventually the movie turns on us and starts getting sloppy, lazy, and cheesy toward the end.