Old-school Sci-fi

Rating: 8/10 (24 November 2012)

A factory accident in the small town of Lillian, Ohio leaves an emotionally distant man (Kyle Chandler) a widower and his son without the one parent he could relate to. At the reception in their home, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Chandler) ejects a man who showed up intoxicated and his son Joe (Joel Courtney) bears witness. In an effort to buy time so that he himself and his son can come to grips with the loss, Jackson tries to persuade Joe to go to baseball camp for the summer and, at the same time, disparages his friends whose interests include the production of monster films for one and explosive for another. As they are in the middle of one such film and Joe promised to help complete it, he declines the offer.
One night, he sneaks out of the house to joins his friends in filming a scene at a train station and they are all nearly killed when a train is derailed after a head-on collision with a speeding pickup. It is the collision and subsequent events that are the source for most of the film. The train belonged to the Air Force and before long, so does the crash site and most of the town as it is placed under a de facto martial law. Joe and Charles, the director of the film that brought them to the train station in first place, examine their footage and see something escaping the train.
Written and directed by J. J. Abrams of Lost fame and with Steven Spielberg co-producing, Super 8 is easily a step above efforts like Cloverfield and Artificial Intelligence while falling just short of films like E.T., Super 8 is a welcomed addition to the sci-fi genre and a great time to be had at the movies.