Thursday, January 5, 2012

Super 8 Review




There is one thing I can attest to…J.J. Abrams is on a film roll. My wife, daughter and I all liked 2009’s Star Trek and I really enjoyed Super 8 (they decided not to watch, their loss). Being the two films that Abrams directed in the last few years, I think that constitutes the start of some kind of streak.

Super 8 is a coming of age, sci-fi, quasi-action and thriller film set in 1979 in Ohio. It is the story of the events that happen in a small town when a group of middle school-aged kids witness a US Air Force train derailing in the outskirts of town. The train contains something the government doesn’t want loose, but of course it gets out.

I liked how well Abrams does at putting you in the feel of the late 1970s. I remember riding my bike all over the place the way the kids in the movie do. Granted I wasn’t into filming Super 8 movies or witness to a train wreck.  I also believed the struggle of Kyle Chandler as a recent widower and town deputy who has, through no fault of his own, been thrust into an authority role trying to make sense of what is happening in his town.

The only nits I can pick on this one might be the use of lens flares (it seems to be Abrams’ thing) and the slight suspension of disbelief needed to accept that the kids in the movie have things figured out well before the adults. Those really are nits though. If you haven’t seen this movie, get it on DVD and start watching. I give 4 Mick Happies to Super 8.



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