Super 8 (M) Starring: Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka
THIS is the big blockbuster film of the American summer, and everyone loves it – everyone but me.
All the usual Spielberg formula elements are there – although he seems to have a new-found love of explosions.
Sci-fi wunderkind J.J. Abrams directs. The cast – mostly children – is largely unknown.
The action is set in 1970s smalltown America, which looks a particularly innocent place in retrospect.
Some junior wannabe Spielbergs are working on a Super 8 film at the local train station, when a United States Air Force train spectacularly derails.
Something gets away … and something’s not happy.
Cue the disappearance of most of the dogs in town, closely followed by a few people as the alien moves on from its entrée.
The eventual unveiling shows the monster to be pretty much the human-spidery amalgam we’ve come to expect.
While all the elements are there, this movie reminds one of nothing more than a souffle which, despite having all the proper ingredients, has inexplicably failed to rise.
The monster genre has been done to death, and I just couldn’t escape the feeling that this was basically a children’s film with failed pretensions to be something bigger. And with an M rating scaring off most parents with younger children, it’s hard to understand just what market this film was made for.
– Jason Beck
