Even better second time around...

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 2012)

A very well made film with likable characters, some neat CGI and some very clever effects. As I've already said, I can see what J.J. Abrams was aiming at, and that is the Spielberg films of the late 70's to the early 80's. Films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and even the Spielberg-produced, The Goonies (1985). Unfortunately this doesn't have the warmth or the magic of those films, but it is still a worthy effort. Going back to the middle third of the film, I referred to it at the beginning; J.J.Abrams uses this section to give the film a lot of emotional depth. This is something I hadn't noticed on my initial viewing, but I can now see just what he was trying to do. Unfortunately it doesn't quite come off here but even so, by the end I could see its place and it made for a really quite enjoyable film. Some great music, both the original soundtrack by Michael Giacchino and the songs of the period that were chosen. As far as the cinematography goes, I've read a lot of comment about "flaring"; this didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I like that they show the film the kids were making while the end credits are rolling It's pretty neat. Recommended.
My score: 8.3/10 (Original Score: 7.5/10)
IMDb Score: 7.2/10 (based on 126,803 votes at the time of going to press).
MetaScore: 72/100: (Based on 41 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 82/100 (based on 257 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 78/100 (based on 96,188 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.