Good Sci-Fi fun and Awesome on Blu-ray!

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2011)

The Movie Itself was written, produced and directed by J.J. Abrams, best known as co-creator of the TV shows "Fringe", "LOST" and "Alias", as well as for producing the film "Cloverfield" in 2008 and directing the reboot of "Star Trek" in 2009. The film was also produced by the legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
The story here is set in the year 1979 in a Ohio town. The main character is a boy in his early teens by the name of "Joe" (played by Joel Courtney) who lives with his father "Jackson" (played by Kyle Chandler). Joe's father is a member of the local police department, specifically a deputy. We see in the opening of the film a tragedy when Joe's mother is killed in a steel plant accident. A funeral is shown and we are introduced briefly to the supporting cast (Joe's friends). After that scene is over we fast-forward to 2 months later. Joe's best friend is another kid in his early teens by name of "Charles" (played by Riley Griffiths). Charles is an aspiring filmmaker and he uses 8mm cameras to shoot his homemade films with his friends like Joe. Joining Joe and Charles in the group of early teen kids working on the film are "Cary" (played by Ryan Lee), "Martin" (played by Gabriel Basso), "Preston" (played by Zach Mills) and eventually "Alice" (played by Elle Fanning).
The kids are working on shooting a zombie film and already have a bit of footage shot of a zombie death. Charles is just convinced it needs more of a story and such as well as production value. Lucky, or maybe not, for the kids they manage to find some major, major production value in the form of a train that passes by the train station where they are filming. At first that is all they think they have, a passing train to add production value, but it soon turns into one massive mess when the train is derailed by a truck. This sets up the plot to our film. Kids making a Super 8 film and they manage to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. They stumble onto a major conspiracy covered up by the military. The train was an Air Force train transporting materials from "Area 51″, so you can only imagine what is inside the train's cargo.
"Super 8" proves to be extremely enjoyable, action-packed and proves to have a very strong story with characters you sincerely do care about; especially the lead Joe and his best friend Charles. It's very cool to see J.J. Abrams team up with the legendary Steven Spielberg. In fact, having said that, I went into this with high expectations and I feel they were met. This is a new breed of "monster movie" / Sci-Fi. I'd compare this film to "Cloverfield" meets "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" perhaps — appropriately enough.