With Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams as writer/director and Steven Spielberg producing, I was a more than a little excited to see Super 8. I could not wait to see what would [likely] be a flashback to the good old days of Spielberg blockbusters, infused with the twisty, mysterious style of Abrams. Unfortunately, this was not the magical, wonderful experience I was anticipating, and instead was been-there done-that cookie cutter sci-fi. The story follows a group of kids as they try to shoot a zombie movie on a cheap Super 8 camera (hence the title), but a nearby train derails during one of their shoots and lets out a monster.
What I thought was supposed to be the big “hook” of the movie was that the kids find a clue (or clues) on the developed film they shot and have to piece together the mystery of what the creature is and what it was doing on the train. Alas, the intriguing premise (or what I had assumed was the premise) is not even important or used in any sort of clever way; the kids’ film isn’t even developed until ¾ into the movie, and even then it does not show anything of value. This movie really does not do anything we haven’t seen before. Another “hook” was that we would for the first time see a Goonies type of film fused with sci-fi, but the script and characters in The Goonies were much richer and more thought out. Even the creature, hyped endlessly through marketing and throughout the actual movie, had an uninspired design! Overall the picture was not the mysterious, awe-inspiring love note to Spielberg it set out to be, it was just too much of the same stuff we’ve seen a billion times over.
I did not completely hate the movie; I did think the actors were all good in their roles (however bad their parts were). Among the kids, the performance that stood out to me was Elle Fanning, who after watching this film, I believe would’ve been a great choice for The Hunger Games’ Katniss. The first quarter of the film was handled promisingly; the train crash was genuinely exciting and there were some great set-ups (if only there was some payoff for those set-ups). There were so many directions this film could have taken; the end result is disappointingly forgettable. I hate to hate Super 8 too; walking into the theater I was honestly expecting it to be an ‘A’ movie. To me, this is probably going to be the biggest disappointment of the year. A film with the logos for both Amblin Entertainment and Bad Robot appearing at the beginning should not be as lackluster as this.
Rating: C+
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