Super 8
What a special movie. It is well known Spielberg gave Abrams and Reeves their starts when he commissioned them to clean his old super-8s. It's nice to see things come full circle now as Spielberg has 'commissioned" Abrams to make a passion project dedicated to homaging his early films. And like Reeve's
Let Me In, Abrams has done a wonderful job of recreating that Amblin feel long forgotten in big budget Hollywood cinema.
This is a movie that is truly sincere in its sentimentality and honest in its attempt to evoke that sense of childhood wonder several generations have grown up with from films like
ET,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Jaws, as well as Amblin produced films such as
The Goonies,
Gremlins, and
Stand By Me.
A group of preadolescent teens while making a Super 8 film witness a horrific and mighty Hollywood train crashed underwritten by ominous science fiction. However, the mystery they stand on the edge of is not nearly as interesting to the audience or the writer/director as the precipice of those final years before growing up that these characters hang from. Despite attempting to suggest a "simpler time" before cell phones, social media or even MTV, these kids are still like all of us and go through what we go through. Given Abrams and Reeves careers started on making Super-8s in high school, the sense of joy that is created around their filmmaking is infectious.
The driving alien mystery or how it effects the two lead characters' fathers is not nearly as interesting as the films
Super 8 is trying to reference. When the third act becomes "save the girl from the monster," it loses steam remarkably fast. But, as a whole it is still a very entertaining movie and has an ending that Producer Spielberg would have been proud to direct back in his early days. This movie is a throwback that is far better than almost anything else that represents modern youth-oriented blockbusters. It is simply a joy to watch.
9/10
My thoughts.
