Cast:
Joel Courtney as Joe Lamb
Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard
Riley Griffiths as Charles
Kyle Chandler as Jackson Lamb
Plot: An air force freight train derails in 1979 Ohio, and the destruction doesn't just come from the train itself but by what was inside the train.
Review: Week after week, trailer after trailer, I didn't know what to classify Super 8 as. Was it a full on monster movie? A mystery movie? A movie about kids growing up? I didn't know. Well I can tell you, it's kind of all 3.
I won't ruin what the monster is, what it can do, what it can't do, all that stuff. I will tell you, if you like monster movies, you should be satisfied with that aspect of the film. I was worried, as was my colleague, that the monster wouldn't be shown at all, and we would be left with this invisible being doing damage. Not the case, at all.
In the trailer, you definitely how it comes to be with a massive train crash and an escape. The back story is what makes the movie really shine, which is kind of weird to say because with a monster lurking around, character development would seemingly take a back seat.
But ultimately, character, and character development, may be the best part of the film. For a movie starring a bunch of kids, I've never seen such troubles dealt with by just a bunch of kids. Here the kids are, filming a movie together when a train comes along, gets derailed and these kids have to get the hell out of there. On top of that, these kids have the balls to roam around, search for things after everything they've seen. The most ballsy kids i've seen in a movie.
You've got bits of comedy, especially from the character Charles. The chubby, aspiring director who wants everything to be so perfect that he really can't stop attempting to fix things. You've got action whenever that monster appears, some explosions, cars being wrecked and people being thrown, eaten, murdered. And finally, you've got one hell of a story that really touches on growing up, the pains and triumphs of it.
There is just something special about Super 8. I was born and raised in the 1990's so any tribute this movie made to much older movies, I cannot reference. So I look at this movie alone, no comparison whatsoever and it's a special movie. It's not the Cloverfield type movie that everyone expected, or wanted, and i'm 100% happy with that.
The only thing stopping me from giving this a perfect rating is the ending. Once again, i'm trying not to spoil things, though I may have done a little bit of that a couple of paragraphs back. I'll say this. Compared to the rest of the movie, the ending isn't as strong. It'll be a head scratcher to some, complete BS to some, fitting to some. For me, it didn't do much.
Final note: Stay for the credits.
Rating 4.5 out of 5
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