What the camera and the spider 8

Rating: 7/10 (21 October 2012)

This is an interesting sci fi drama written and directed by J. J. Abrams, who also co-produced through his company Bad Robot. Abrams is Executive Producer of the Bad Robot TV series FRINGE (2008-2013, see my review), which is a highly superior sci fi series. This film is aimed at the family market, which is hardly surprising, as it is produced by Stephen Spielberg. The main characters are kids, and they are mostly highly amusing. The lead girl is Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota Fanning. She is an excellent actress, extremely attractive, and has the advantage of speaking clearly and not mumbling like her sister does. The lead boy is Joel Courtney, a highly likable young fellow with big sensitive eyes, who should go a long way. He plays Tom Sawyer in TOM SAWYER & HUCKLEBERRY FINN, which has just completed shooting, so we look forward to seeing him in that when it is released in 2013. I would say he is perfect for Tom Sawyer, and will be as good as or better than Jackie Coogan was in the 1930 production of TOM SAWYER (see my review). This film features an alien who is an intelligent arachnoid, a giant creature like a spider, with six legs and an ugly face, who wants to go home, but the US Air Force have kept him captive since his spaceship crashed in 1958, and they won't let him go. (Spielberg certainly does like the marooned ET motif.) The film features the most spectacular train crash I have ever seen on screen, and if you like train crashes, I believe nobody ever spent more money on one. The film has superior special effects throughout. The story is based on a group of kids in a California town who want to make a school film about zombies on 'super 8', the film used in home movie celluloid cameras. (This film is set in a time apparently meant to be the 1970s, before video cameras existed.) While shooting a scene at a small deserted train station one night, the kids get more than they bargained for, because a train roars by which then crashes and explodes, letting loose the alien creature, who then stalks the land. However, this is a film intended for family entertainment, so the shocks and horrors are restrained enough for kids to take. One surprise treat is that we see the kids' zombie film over the final credits, and it is funnier than the main film itself.