Review of Super 8 (2011) by John_Galactus — 09 Jun 2011

Just watched the movie in Digital-2D. First of all, I would like to say, I'm a big fan of J.J. Abrams' work having watched "Alias", "Lost" and "Fringe", and watched his directorial movie debut "Mission Impossible III" and then the epic "Star Trek".

"Star Trek" is one of the best movies I've seen and it absolutely catered for all movie go-ers, Trekkie or not. When his next film was announced, I was super excited. "Super 8" is my most anticipated movie of 2011 with "Hp 7 Pt 2" and "T3:DOTM" behind.

I was going to watch this movie no matter the ratings, then again I knew it couldn't possibly have a low rating. When RT had it above 80%, I knew instantly the movie worked (I was actually really hoping for a good reception).

I heard that the movie got its first rotten review after 13 reviews while "Star Trek" after a staggering 49 reviews. What's not to like about a mysterious movie that no one knows much about except the "discovery of something inhuman".

The build up with the epic teaser trailer and then the full length trailer just made the wait all more worth it. Since the trailer was in my opinion brilliant, the movie may not turn out the same. Not the case here.

I admit I'm bit of a extraterrestrial fan craving for the "next big alien movie" - the last one I watched was *pukes* "Battle: *pukes some more* LA". Nevermine that so-called movie.

It was utter... disgrace. The plot in "Super 8" is indeed all its hyped up to be. Without revealing too much, let's just say it has plenty of references to Steven Spielberg's works most notably "E.

T" (kids on cycles), "Jurassic Park" (roar from the distance) and many more including "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" which I have not much memory of since I watched it when I was a kid.

I only remember the alien's skinny neck and arms reaching out and the sound/music of the UFO shattering windows. Oh, and you can thrown in "War of the Worlds" too. In others words, J.J. Abrams has written some of Spielberg's most iconic alien flicks into this movie, and made it his own.

I'm not saying he tried to bring back those moments, but that is what these scenes will undoubtedly invoke. As for the actors, you got Elle Fanning, Joul Courtney and Kyle Chandler. All three were brilliant thought I did feel Kyle Chandler who plays Jackson Lamb trying too hard with his role.

Most surprising and worthy to be pointed out is Elle Fanning - only the second movie I've seen her (first being "Benjamin Button") and what a surprise. She did really well, and clearly knew her acting chops for the actual-movie itself and in the little film project they did.

I definitely felt the 'loss connection' between Joe and his father, and Alice and her father. There were some genuine emotional moments though they were very little. Kudos to the kid who played the zombie too.

.. I don't know whether to love the ending or not, but I felt a few more revisions to the writing could have made it much more memorable. I will not call it half-baked or average at best, but rather a "nice conclusive ending".

Unlike "Cloverfield" where the monster, still lived and you still were guessing at the end of it. So is this movie worth watching? Well, it's definitely a must-watch, BUT and I have to admit, not the epic quality that is J.

J's previous work "Star Trek". It still is great and a helluva lot of fun to watch. Very entertaining from start-to-finish. Yet again, this movie caters to all types of movie go-ers, whether you're into sci-fi or not.

It does not have the ambiguity/grey areas of "Cloverfield", in fact it seems to have looked at "Cloverfield" as an 'issue' and resolved it with "Super 8". Nicely done.