Review: Super 8

Super 8

6/10/11

Carmike Cinema 10

Large Mr. Pibb, few bites of popcorn

Appropriate A/C

Now THIS is what we’ve been waiting for!!!  I’d forgotten what a GREAT movie looks and feels like.  Not since Inception had I left the theater wanting to turn right around and see a movie again.  I think we’ve tried to fool ourselves a few times and probably overrated some movies simply by comparing them with the junk that was out at the time.  Then a movie like Super 8 comes along and reminds us what we weren’t getting. 

Super 8 is a Summer movie the way Summer movies are supposed to be made.  Remember back when Steven Spielberg (who happens to be a producer on this film) made really good movies that weren’t too preachy or weird?  E.T., The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurrasic Park?  That’s what this feels like.  I’m not saying Amistad, Saving Private Ryan and Shindler’s List aren’t good movies, “Ryan” is in my Top 5 of all-time.  I’m just saying they aren’t fun, feel good movies.  You didn’t know you were missing it until you see it again,  I promise.

JJ Abrams, creator of TV’s Alias, Lost and the big screen reboot of Star Trek, helms this throwback to a time we all remember fondly.  A more simple era with no cell phones, riding your bike until dark, great music.  The movie happens to be set in 1979 but could really be set whenever you want it to be, whatever time period brings back those feelings for you.  A film crew of early teens are filming a zombie movie with a super 8 camera (which happens to be Spielberg and Abrams media of choice as children) to enter into a film festival.  They happen to catch the events of a spectacular train wreck on film while shooting one night and soon after mysterious events begin to take place around their town.  What was the train carrying?  Why is the military handling the cleanup? 

The kids (Joe, Charles, Martin, Cary and Preston along with their female lead Alice) are the stars of the movie and the “movie within the movie”.  Riley Griffiths as Charles plays the director of the zombie movie they are filming and is outstanding.  He’s already got the quirks and quips of a big time Hollywood director down pat.  And newcomer Joel Courtney who plays the lead character, Joe, is destined for greatness.  Playing a young man whose mother has recently died and doesn’t have any sort of relationship at all with his father (Friday Night Lights’ Kyle Chandler, outstanding as always), Courtney does a great job of getting you to really root for him.

It’s pretty scary at times so it’s probably not good for kids under 13 but I think most everyone else will love it.  It reminds me of the above movies wrapped into one and be sure to stay during the credits to watch the final product of the homemade movie the kids are making, it’s worth the wait.  This is one not to delay in going to see.  My favorite of 2011 so far. 

My review: 

3.5/4, A, See it TODAY in the theater