Super 8

Trying to write a review for this movie is pretty hard because while J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8” is by no means a ‘perfect’ movie, it is really freaking good and it’s hard to make a very interesting review out of something like this because I don’t want to spoil the movie, but it’s hard to explain why the movie is so good while avoiding them. Thankfully being hard doesn’t instantly translate into impossible and thus, here we go.
The plot of “Super 8” is basically summed up as “E.T.” meets “Cloverfield”. In more details it’s about a bunch of kids in the late 70’s/early 80’s (They reference George Romero a lot, so I’m going to assume that Dawn of The Dead had come out, which puts this in the 1979 neighborhood.) that are making a zombie movie and while filming one night they witness a huge train crash. The military shows up and weird things start happening as they realize that what they filmed may be more important than they know.
So let’s get to what works, for the most part the script is really good, working in that character driven way that made things like “The Goonies” and “E.T.” work so well. Added to that the cast of young actors all play their parts well, seriously the kids are the best actors in this movie, Elle Fanning in particular is amazing and here’s hoping that this movie is the big jumping off point for a great career. Lead Joel Courtney does a nice job giving me flashbacks to Henry Thomas as Elliot and Kyle Chandler plays his father the deputy with a great balance of sadness and obsessive professionalism that creates a great dynamic between father and son.
However, as good as the movie is, I still have some quibbles with it. What really works is all the stuff with the kids and how they deal with seeing the train crash and what they do in its wake, and if the movie had stayed focused on that it’d be pretty much the template for a 5 star rating. Unfortunately it doesn’t, we spend just as much time with Chandler’s investigation of the weird goings on, and there’s a large amount of the story that’s devout to a military cover up story. Neither of these stories are really that well done and when you’re seriously wanting the b plot to go away so that the movie can be fun again, you really might as well not have the b plot.
But like I said, “Super 8” is a really really good movie despite those flaws I mentioned, which I feel to be minor hiccups in an overall damn good movie. I say go see it, it’s one of those rare summer movies that should be seen and is probably the closest we’re going to come to getting the spark that gave “The Goonies” such popularity and staying power for a long time.

Super 8 gets

4 mysterious disappearances out of 5