Hard-edged nostalgia with lens flare.

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2011)

You know how James Bond is now tougher, Batman is now darker, and slashers have become "torture porn"? Stephen Spielberg's nostalgia-laced children's adventure land is likewise more dysfunctional and militant.
This movie is unapologetically advertised LENSFLARE and sold as a Spielberg homage, not just his own movies but the rippled effects therefrom. The way LENSFLARE the PR for this movie went, I was rather surprised they didn't hand out a checklist card with a "Find the movie reference!" list on it, but actually the references LENSFLARE were really more understated than it seemed, and the nostalgia surprisingly LENSFLARE more sincere than it was sold as. What's more interesting than Abrams' beloved Super 8mm childhood is the fact that that idea LENSFLARE is put to the background as a series of plot points that serve the popcorn LENSFLARE adventure just as well as any other device could, just as the story could have been told in any decade but forced itself into the 70s/80s to fit LENSFLARE the device. All of LENSFLARE this would be fine but Abrams I feel makes a misstep in actually not keeping the movie confined to the essential elements that he, and we as audience, are LENSFLARE there for: the childhood adventure.
Instead it is more adult and darker. Now the thing about those wonderful Spielberg and company movies is that they were a lot more adult than subsequent generations of children's entertainment, featuring potty language and blood and monstrous thrills amidst the otherwise magical fantasyland. However what I mean by more adult and darker here is the way the movie loses focus, breaks away from the kids' perspective (which could easily have been maintained by sticking to the Super 8 camera motif) to do its evol military thing, investigative local cop, adult grief, and all layered into a movie that handles it well but didn't really need any of it. Again, The Goonies, ET, Gremlins, so on, they had those hints, adults struggling with something difficult the kid doesn't fully understand, forces beyond the community's control threatening their livelihood, the alienation of the kid familiarized by the alienation of the alien, but yet again, from the kid's perspective. Here it's laid out bare and thus much more hard edged and cynical in what is otherwise supposed to be a return to innocence. James Bond doesn't just flirt with Moneypenny anymore, now he's a vengeful force of nature. Batman doesn't just quietly suffer his traumatic past but fights moral conundrums as aggressively as his opponents. Slashers don't just go out for blood but lock victims in rooms to protract the bloodletting. And now we don't worry about Han shooting first or walkie talkies replacing rifles 'cause we've already an entire suburban landscape blowing up from out of control heavy artillery.
So when's nostalgia not nostalgia and innocence not innocent? Perhaps that would be the point except that it clearly isn't. The characters are written very lucidly to type, Chunk is now a burgeoning director, Data is now a fireworks fanboy, Andy is now a neglected loner girl. In this way the movie works, especially when the kids go off on their chatter. There is a lot of "GEE WHIZ!" "THIS IS CRAZY GUYS!" "DID YOU SEE THAT EXPLOSION!" fanfare that really is the heart of the movie and the best characterizations by the actors as they all run around doing their adventurous thing. It's fun hearing their interests and opinions popping up even in such cases when buildings are falling around them. So once again, though the story is fully fleshed out and makes sense in context to how its told, still yet the adult element is really unnecessary and distracts from the point.
This movie will also probably be debated in terms of its choices LENSFLARE of reveal. People are already LENSFLARE rapidly falling into the, "Should the monster be seen or shouldn't it?" debate, and actually I didn't mind the movie's LENSFLARE choice. In a way it is a different type of old school, a newer old school if you don't mind the contradiction. This movie LENSFLARE recalls Jurassic Park and early CGI feasts by LENSFLARE keeping things even when in plain view either in the distance or in the dark. Though we've gotten to the point LENSFLARE where South Korea has The Host and LENSFLARE Norway has Troll Hunter, proving that you needn't require even Hollywood production to make acceptable CGI, this movie plays that card safe and leaves the best parts LENSFLARE for actual emotional beats.
In the end the movie is going to be summed up by a variety of people in the same way: a summer popcorn movie that embraces its popcornness. For some, that's exactly what they want from cinema and for others, they'll mean it in a bad way. I'm completely neutral on the matter so unfortunately my response to the film is rather mediocre. I enjoyed it and was glad that I saw it with friends, I especially enjoyed the crowd's reactions to it in the movie theatre as an "event movie", and I couldn't really say there's any reason to see it again or own it on DVD or recommend it to anybody or anything. It's a good movie, I'm glad I saw it and it surprised me a little. Something tells me Spielberg's own Tintin is going to blow this out of the water.
--PolarisDiB