Grand-scale adventure capped off with realistic-looking action

Rating: 8/10 (24 August 2011)

This had to have been my first midnight showing in 2 years. For one, nobody in Maine keeps anything open past 10PM even on the weekends (they fear wolves, I think), but mostly there just isn't a crowd. We drove 40 miles to the incredible Magic Lantern Theater and shared an intimate screening with 4 other folks, including 2 theater employees. Everyone else completely missed out – there was energy in the room from the tiny crowd that matched the feeling when I first saw the trailer. "Here it is," I thought, "finally a movie that is done like a classic sci-fi thriller. If anybody can do this, J. J. Abrams and his attention to detail will pull it off."
Super 8 opens strong with an event that sets up our hero, Joe Lamb's, chain of events. There are a lot of things that the trailers have been misleading on and intentional about keeping quiet, so I won't spoil those moments. The first shot is one of those – defining moment with a lot of ambiguity that clears as the movie progresses. After we introduce the stellar cast of kids, it doesn't take long for the massive train wreck (literally, not in the story sense like most films) that sets the weird rolling.
I started sweating a little bit during that scene – not because it was so tense, but so over the top that Michael Bay would have blushed. I swear that train crashed for 10 minutes. Train cars and debris flew everywhere mostly because the Air Force conveniently peppered their precious cargo train with gasoline tanker cars. Despite that, Abrams quickly redeemed himself with a riveting adventure story told through the simple eyes of children.
Casting couldn't have been more perfect. Joel Courtney, with his single impressive IMDb credit, plays a perfect hero just trying to have a childhood and save the girl. His energy and intensity was easily matched by the impressive Elle Fanning. In a sea of raunchy films and slapped-together productions, it was a huge breath of fresh air to simply enjoy good acting and a well-structured story. Was it the most innovated film? Not by a long shot, but what it attempted, it did very very well.
A grand-scale adventure capped off with realistic-looking action and a great cast of appropriately aged kids (*cough*I Am Number Four*cough*) made for an incredibly enjoyable film. Stop showing the monster, and take a queue from the old-school movies, Hollywood.