Super 8

[JG]

Its easy to be cynical and hate on a movie like this, but you can just as well surrender and enjoy it for the stuff it does right. I'm somewhere in between. That said, I do wish that there could be summer blockbuster about a bunch of kids making a movie, and not have it become the kind of movie they are trying to make.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Its easy to be cynical and hate on a movie like this, but you can just as well surrender and enjoy it for the stuff it does right. I'm somewhere in between.

GOD WILL SPIT YOU OUT

[Myxo]

B-

This was Spielberg's "War of the Worlds", "The Goonies" and a Zergling creature from Starcraft all rolled into one! Fun movie overall. One of those good but not great summer blockbusters.

[Stefen]

It was just nice to have something new. Even tho it's an homage to the flicks from the late 70's early 80's, it was just really nice to not involve a superhero or a reboot of something. I'll always support fresh things. 

[squints]

Zergling creature from Starcraft

HA! Wasn't gonna see it before, but now i have to.

[72teeth]

psh... more like Super Lame...

Hay-Ded Et!

[RegularKarate]

I enjoyed the movie because I set my expectations lower after accepting that Abrams needs a good screenwriter and that wasn't happening this time.

The acting was great and the adventure-y parts were well shot, but the strings tying the two stories together were loose.  I don't think it would have been that hard to strengthen the parallels between what was going on with the kids and what was going on with the town.  SPOILER: Waiting until the end to reveal the obvious and poorly designed creature really hurt the story.  Why does JJ think he needs to "surprise" people?  Did he really think we didn't know what was going on?

[Gold Trumpet]

Spoilers

I didn't mind your complaint, RK, because I thought if the audience would have known all along, I fear more of the story would have been paid to understanding the alien. He's not an integral part of the emotional story. In this way, all the end revelation did is explain some of the early weirdness in basic ways and help to support the finale. It felt like an adequate subplot mechanism for the plot.

[RegularKarate]

BIG SPOILER

Once we know that the alien can E.T. (share an understanding with human characters), we know that's going to happen.  Waiting until the end to have it happen makes it feel like a shitty "magical" solution to everything in the movie.  Why does that get him over his mother?  Why does him saying what he said to the alien make the alien not want to kill them all of a sudden?  If the parallels between what he was going through and what the alien was going through had been stronger, it would have maybe been okay, but they weren't.

[socketlevel]

***SPOILER***

I think the main problem is that he's already seemingly accepting his mother's death, it's the father that needs to let go.

[Pozer]

^ was that a spoiler response to the big spoiler?

[Gold Trumpet]

BIG SPOILER

Once we know that the alien can E.T. (share an understanding with human characters), we know that's going to happen.  Waiting until the end to have it happen makes it feel like a shitty "magical" solution to everything in the movie.  Why does that get him over his mother?  Why does him saying what he said to the alien make the alien not want to kill them all of a sudden?  If the parallels between what he was going through and what the alien was going through had been stronger, it would have maybe been okay, but they weren't.

Spoiers

I agree with what Socketlevel says. The emotional resonance the alien has is very limited. Him simply wanting to leave and not be held prisoner mainly allows the children to identify with him and find their extra gear in bravery. In a general sense, it gets the boy to be more confident about certain things, but the situation was already getting him challenge himself anyways. When the alien touches people's hands, it gets them to change their opinions about the alien, but the alien does not affect any major relationships. The girl still cares about the boy and he cares about her but both are mainly dealing with uncertainty in their parents. The disaster scenario itself is what gets them to prioritize their interests and see beyond their past grievances.

[socketlevel]

^ was that a spoiler response to the big spoiler?

I didn't think it was, or i would have put a spoiler warning like i normally do. in any case i edited the post. If you haven't seen the film, I didn't ruin anything. My comment was in the child's performance and JJs direction.

sorry.

[diggler]

Spoilers

When the credits rolled, all I could think was "shouldn't they be more pissed about all the dead people?" There was a lot I loved about it, namely the Goonies-esque treatment of the kids. The jealousy issues between Joe and Charles were over as soon as they were brought up, and there were a few other scenes that felt missing from the final cut (was that the train car Alice was holding when she came home? did we miss a scene where he gave that to her?), but aside from that the kid actors were all very good. Elle Fanning was pretty fantastic as Alice, especially in that rehearsal scene at the train station where everyone stood speechless. Kyle Chandler's escape from the army base got the biggest cheer at my screening, which was a cool moment I guess but everything from there felt kind of rushed for me. Most of the monster attacks were pretty forgettable except for that final bus attack. In fact I'm surprised people were calling this a slow film because if anything I thought they should've scaled back several scenes, like the train crash and the last attack on the town where all of the tanks were going haywire.  It just seemed rather silly that everything at the train crash was destroyed but the car didn't have a scratch on it.

These quibbles are pretty minor though, I thought it was a great time at the movies.  Early Spielberg is something that even Spielberg can't replicate. You had a variety of factors working on all cylinders at that time. John Williams was doing his best work, practical effects were necessary, and audiences had more patience for character development. I applaud Abrams for trying to tell a patient, original story but what he's going for is lightning in a bottle.  Film nerds who appreciate what he's doing will just complain that it's not as good (like i'm doing now) and casual audiences won't have the patience or understanding to really get it.

Loved the "film within a film" over the credits, nice Romero shout out.

[Stefen]

Spoils.

Yeah, all the dead people kind of bothered me as well. It kind of gave it an edge that I didn't want it to have. I didn't want the creature to be dangerous, just misunderstood. When they're in it's lair and it's eating that limb, that kind of bothered me.