SUPER 8 - REVIEW

• Super 8 Review

Super 8 is a film that will really grab your attention as it gets going… Yes it might feature an alien, but the film is much more then just the alien!! Which is a good thing!!

It's about a young kid realizing that grief isn't something you get over, it's something you learn to live with. It's about fathers and sons, and the conflict that comes when the former struggles to relate to the latter. It really goes through the emotions and it brings you a sense of forgiveness, but its done in true Spielberg fashion. Yet, this time the director’s chair was giving to his “prodigy” JJ Abrams.

But the film does mess up by not being able to bring these two genres or origins seamlessly together. The end product is mash-up between films like ET and The Thing.

The biggest success of the film is definitely our Abrams was able to capture the feel of the Smalltown in 1979 and tell the story of a group of friends that’s just trying to make a film, when there lives are turned upside down when they witness train crash.

It's a testament to Abrams' direction that we fall for these young teens as hard as they do for each other. Abrams gives each character the right amount of personality to make them endearing.

The only other problem that the film had was that, Abrams spends the majority of the film trying to hide the Alien instead of developing its character, which inturn would of led the film to have a much better and effective arc along with our main character, making it a great classic film, and not one that just had great moments.

When Super 8 works, though, it really works, earnestly and without manipulation. It's a love letter to a certain type of genre filmmaking; it's an original idea, inspired by the original ideas of others, with a strong emotional core that's hard to find in current Hollywood movies.

Our Rating 7/10

M1 & M2 With The Review