Movie Review : Super 8

[amazon_link id=”B0052EV846″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : 3/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2011
Running time : 2 hours 10 minutes
Director : JJ Abrams

Are you nostalgic for the days of yore? I mean really nostalgic ? Well then this film is for you. Hark back to the 80s with this throwback of a film. It reminded me of the ET era  since the film makes a real effort to reproduce the feel of that time – the clothes, the sets and the technology. And I didn’t like it. For one thing, I was bored. Secondly, we’re well into the 2000s. Time has progressed. Why then go back in time ? If I did want to do that, I would just use my handy time-travel machine; I wouldn’t go see this film.

This film is very ET-esque. There are a bunch of kids, and one of them Charles (Riley Griffiths) is passionate about film, and sets about producing one, as a kind of a summer project. Well, as he and his friends are shooting a scene for the film near a deserted railway station, they witness an accident. A truck rushes onto the path of a speeding goods train and the train derails. The kids narrowly miss the flying debris and rush home not telling anyone about their presence at the scene of the accident. As the train derailment gets attention, it appears that the train was carrying some special hush-hush cargo. And now the cargo has gone missing . . .

Now, children are the heroes of this film. The main protagonist Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is a school going kid, and the son of the local police chief Jackson Lamb (Jackson Lamb). Joe has just lost his mother in a local factory accident, and is dealing with his loss this summer. Charles the film-maker is a good friend of his. It is a small town and everyone knows everyone else.  The film’s story is told mainly from the kids’ viewpoint – their fantasies, their fears and their adventures. They do the thinking and the running around. Of course they are assisted by the adults at appropriate sticky points. There is a good guy and a bad guy and a problem and everything is resolved at the end. Very standard movie formula ; interesting for a child maybe, but rather tepid for an adult viewer.

My kids who are a product of this internet ready world found it kind of novel. They were amazed at the bulky old television sets, big fat cameras, the old, old cars and aged looking houses.  I on the other hand am a bit older and have actually lived through the 80s – you will understand why I didn’t want to be drawn back into that time-period  again. My children did like this film; they haven’t watched ET or any of the films from the 80s, so this was a little new for them. They were caught up in the kiddie intrigue and appreciated the kid antics.

While there is not much to fault in this product as a standalone film, I can’t appreciate it. It is very been there done that. There is nothing new, no attempt to stretch the boundaries or attempt a new spin – something you expect from Steven Spielberg. It’s the same old movie fodder in the same old packaging, and why with all the smart, witty, interesting movies out there would you want to watch this rehash of an 80s film ? Beats me.